Wishing Star
by The Writing Bee
Summary: Mostly surrounding Starscream and his choices if he hadn't fled Earth but stayed with Barricade, resulting in his capture by Autobots. Following 2007 Transformer's movie. Completed!
1. Captured Star

Disclaimer: Transformers and all associated in this aren't mine... unless I decide to bring in someone. Which will not happen... probably. Ish.

Author Note/Foreward/etc: Just an idea I needed to get out. Sequal to the movie, if Starscream hadn't managed to leave the planet. He'll also be sommat OOC... But I hope to generaly get all their personalities right.

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If anything, being captured by a small, squishy endoskeleton species like _humans_ would be the most humiliating deffeat to any Decepticon.

----------------------- One month after the final battle over the All Spark

Everything had been cleaned up by now. Though buildings and streetways were still being repaired, the only thing that really remained of the final Decepticon and Autobot throwdown were the final desperate scrounges for news coverage on the entire event. There had been some trouble between the general citizens and government between the coverup, but that wasn't to be his problem.

A firm alliance had been established between the U.S. Military and the Autobots, which had been provided a command center far from civilization and large enough to easily accomidate their size. Though the Autobots tended to be more spread out than concentrated, to a certain extent. Bumblebee stayed strictly with Sam and Mikaela, Ironhide stayed with Commander Lennox, keeping any tabs on military involvements. Which mostly involved searching for the two remaining Decepticons on the planet. Barricade had been keeping very low profile, along with Starscream. The more troublesome of the two would have to be Starscream due to his jet form, and the fact that none of the Autobots on the planet had arial anything. Aside from the basic long-range weaponry.

The best they could all hope for was arial support from any Autobots that recieved Optimus's signal. If there was any chance of Decepticons reassembling, it would most likely come from Starscream. Any Autobot that looked past the basic battles knew that the lead arial commander for the Decepticons and his (former) leader, did not get along well. There had been more than one victory given to the Autobots thanks to Starscream's attempted backstabbing and overthrow of Megatron. And like all back stabbing schemers, Starscream ran from a fight when the odds were against him, relying more on speed and deception. While that made him easier to deal with as far as a straight fight, since he would hardly ever try anything risky on his own behalf, it made him hard to deal with and predict at the same time. Being a coward made him smart to make up for the lack of bravery. The personality concept of his most fit with the human term 'snake'. And like a snake in the grass, he was damn hard to find, and catch. It was a wonder why Megatron had kept him around at all.

As for Barricade, trying to track down a slightly altered human police vehicle should have been easy with police recording. Such a thing was turning out to be not so easy. The military had been trying to set up check points, using the special radiation scanners made exactly to sense the radiation coming from a Transformer's spark. There had been ONE time. Only one time that the reading had come up positive, but Barricade had immediatly sensed the danger of being caught and fled. Satelite tracking had been put into effect, but had been quickly blocked and taken down. Later reports of an F-22 Raptor having gone AWOL aproximately the same time of the tracking black out, and subsiquent loss of Barricade's location, confirmed Optimus Prime's suspicion that the two remaining Decepticons were in contact. And probably even more cautious now. The pilot that made the distress call that his plane had diverted from course was not recovered.

In order for the two of them to survive without any other support, they would have to rely on each other. Until more Decepticons arrived. If they arrived.

This was the very reason the two Decepticons needed to be captured; to find out the current status of their side, so to speak. Would they simply fall apart, break ranks, and scatter, refusing a leader with Megatron gone? The bot HAD had a rediculous drive to win and for power, but there were others like Starscream that could take over. Eliminating the threat before it became a threat was a very good idea.

Their forces were rather stretched, and only Ironhide was regularly at a military base, a place that would be difficult for any of the other Autobots to reach quickly should something actually happen. Ratchet was medical, their ONLY medical, and couldn't be risked to go out completely to fight, though such a fact made him feel demeaned, no matter the logic.

All of these factors had been determined with part of the heat of the final battle over the All Spark was still lingering, keeping them all on high alert.

Almost a year passed before anything happened.

-----------------

A large blue truck with red flames was driving down the highway, transporting military goods. Ratchet had stated, with some sullen undertones, that he would be fine at their new base of operations alone. Optimus Prime had used the oportunity to go outside, and check up on Bumblebee and Ironhide. Commander Lennox had requested through Ironhide to bring a shipment of parts to the military base since he was coming to visit. After all; you couldn't get much safer than having an Autobot trasport materials. Perhaps it was by sheer luck that he was on his way to the base. Optimus's communications relay cracked to life 40 miles from the base,

"Optimus! Pick up the pace, we've got Starscream in the hangar, and he is definetly _not_ happy about being caught." in the background he could hear gunfire and even some explosions. Ironhide's transmission ended with cutting off his apparent leap into battle, "Oh no you don't-!"

"Hang in there Ironhide." it was all he could do to speed up, alerting over the communications system to Bumblebee and Ratchet that Starscream had been found, and Ironhide was engaged.

------------------------- About ten minutes ago---------------------

"Keep it coming, get all the jets back in from their routine runs." ground crew waved their arms to indicate the pilots should move foreward slowly.

They weren't to say a word about the inspection once inside the hanger, and the doors were closed and pilots leaving the planes. Once the pilots were out of the main hangar, they were all scanned with Spark radiation scanners. When one had come up positive and with high readings, he was quickly asked which jet was the one he had come from. Commander Lennox had immediatly informed Ironhide through his radio.

The harpoon-like cables were already in the hanger for this very reason, and when human military quickly began to move out and arm all of them, Starscream had immediatly become suspicious. Quick bioscans revealed adrenalin rushes and increased heartrate. The straight forward attack with the heat-enhanced weaponry made Starscream quickly start up his engines and try to take off. Slightly too slow, one grappled harpoon had shot out to one of his wings, sliding along the hard metal surface before catching in the nooks and crannies to hold fast. He'd immediatly opened fire, increasing engine power as he felt another grappling harpoon latch onto the tail of the plane. Deciding that being in jet form made him close to useless, Starscream hadn't hesitated to transform. And thus the major difference between an Autobot and Decepticon was revealed; Starscream fought. Hard. And without restraint on any sort of weaponry, unlike Bumblebee.

Outside, Ironhide had finished relaying the message to Optimus Prime, already rolling out to the hanger and transforming. Something that had been just in time since Starscream busted through the hanger ceiling, full thrust and breaking off one of the grapplers, shooting down and fully transformed. It was at this point that Ironhide had cut the communications with literally tackling Starscream out of the air to stop him from escaping. Nearly all of the jets inside had been shot to pieces already.

------------------ Military Hanger, present moment

"GET OFF ME AUTO-SCUM!" Starscream's raspy voice had demanded, trying his best to remain airborn as he was tackled, quickly hitting the ground and further ruining the hanger's ceiling. He could feel another grappling harpoon latch onto one of his arms and quickly pull it to the side just as he had gotten it to aim at Ironhide, point blank. Another spray of bullets rained accross the hanger, igniting his thrusters again and twisting to flip Ironhide over so he was the one on the ground, free hand gripping his chest plating while the other proceeded to beat his face to scrap. Which hadn't worked so well with the grappling harpoon around his arm, lessening the hits. He could feel a steady pull on the cable attatched to his ankle, looking back and trying to jerk it forward, seeing one of the surviving jets having been quickly hooked to the cable and pulling.

"Give it up Starscream, there's no way you're getting out of here!" Ironhide had taken the oportunity to plant his fist into Starscream's face in order to knock him off and throw him to the ground. Which the cables made a bit difficult, since they held him down, and the Decepticon wasn't about to just let him go to get out and leap on him again. There had been a good ammount of tussling and restricted rolling due to the two cables, the humans there merely trying to stay out of the way and avoid getting shot, or trying to get a _clear_ shot at one of Starscream's limbs.

The fight had reached its standing point when Ironhide had managed to get Starscream somewhat pinned with one arm stretched out and the other leg stretched out due to the jet, having been careful to keep Starscream's missile launcher arm away from the assisting human jet.

"I'LL TURN YOU INTO SLAG!" Starscream had raged, thrusters firing up again and managing to throw of Ironhide once more, quickly aiming his missile launcher at the jet and firing. The fire was indeed a success, and the target jet went up in a large blistering fireball with shrapnel flying in result. Right after the missile had been launched, Ironhide had fired a shot from one of his dual plasma canons at the arm, successfully damaging the missile launcher and almost tearing off Starscream's arm. Said Decepticon screamed at him and swung his now free leg at him, which was caught and resulted in another tussle.

After a few minutes of playing 'who can get the better leverage', Ironhide won with pinning Startscream and trying to tie down the remaining arm, while trying to keep it pointed at the Decepticon to save whatever humans were left here. He quickly tried to punchout and damage the jet's thrusters since they'd caused enough trouble already, "Quit struggling you creten! Optimus wants you alive! For the love of... QUIT IT!" it was hard to keep balance with Starscream doing everything he could to throw the other off. What was even harder was to capture him _alive_ instead of just blasting his spark into oblivion and ending it. Which would have been much easier. And he'd always been able to blast his targets to slag before.

Ironhide also wanted to rip out Starscream's voice capacitor to stop his unpleasant screeching. And it would be fair payback for Bumbebee's heavily damaged voice capacitor, courtesy of Megatron. But they needed him to talk, so that wasn't an option. Though who was to say it wasn't an option later...

----------------------------------- Approximately 10 minutes later

"Optimus, everything is under control. Bitchy, but under control." Ironhide radioed, standing over and watching the restrained Starscream with a careful optic. The Decepticon was clearly seething, straining hydrolics and gears clearly audible as he growled and struggled in the heavily reinforced cords of steel.

"Let me go Autobot! I don't know what you're hoping for by capturing me, but it's not going to work!" Starscream had raged on at him in human and in Cybertron language, cursing any way he could think of. Ironhide just took a breath and waited for him to finish yelling,

"You done yet, punk? I'm talking here." Ironhide growled, speech pattern following Clint Eastwood's, the chosen pattern he'd found on the internet, "How long until you arrive? I bet we can transport him," he gave Starscream a bit of a kick for emphasis, "in that big cargo truck you're carrying on behind ya." Starscream just ground his gears in anger.

"That's a good idea. I'm afraid he'll have to be frozen for the transport," he didn't add on 'like Bublebee had been',"or risk exposure. Do the humans have their CO2?"

"Yeah, they do. We'll start freezing him now so we can leave as soon as possible."

"Roger. Optimus out."

"Ironhide out."

And with that, the communications link closed, Ironhide tilting his head slightly, looking down at Starscream and recieving the Decepticon's piercing death glare. He didn't like the reminder of Bumbebee's capture and subsequent brief experimentation or whatever had happened, but he sure as hell wasn't sorry for Starscream.

"... Sucks to be you, punk." all he recived in return was an angry yell and more struggling as the humans moved in to freeze him, moving out of the way and crossing his arms, not about to transform back into car form until Starscream was frozen solid with no chances of something going wrong. The devistated air hanger was the human's problem.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TBC

Maybe.

My god I haven't written a story in forever. And I wanted to get rid of this idea. If enough people like it, express yourself through the reviews. Should Starscream lean toward the Decepticons or Autobots? He's a bit of a wild card, so could go either way.


	2. Loyalty?

Where do you really stand?

A/N: Ahh... hu hu hu hu... I like Starscream. And I haven't been SO obessed with the Transformers series to know all of their personalities (thank the Gods for Wikipedia), I've only watched some of Armada. So I'm trying to give it my best shot and read up on various personalities.

And yes, I did enjoy writing the crazy fight scene. There shall be more contact between Starscream and Barricade soon... eventually.

oo and Barricade and Starscream don't get along that well, right? so most conversations would be along the lines of 'I don't like you, but you're all I have on this stupid planet'?

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----------------------- Approximately 3 AM, local time, Nevada Desert. 45 hours after detaining Starscream

"Alright; anyone got a plan about HOW we are going to detain him...?" Ratchet asked, arms crossed as he stood infront of the frozen Starscream, whom had been unloaded and was currently being carried by Ironhide to the designated brig; something they had noted to make first.

"What, this isn't good enough for you?" the strong steel reinforced cables were still wrapped around the Decepticon. The heat off of Ironhide's metal body was warming Starscream and he knew it, but wasn't terribly worried. There wasn't much anything he could do against three Autobots in optimal condition. Where as Starscream was tied up, with the lower half of his left arm almost torn off. All courtesy of Ironhide.

"I'm merely saying that if you wish to transfer containment detailing, you'd have to fight him again." Any attempt to move his frozen limbs or components could result in extreme damage due to the brittleness the cold had. Some of the ice on Starscream was starting to melt and fall off.

"Hey, I ain't got a problem with fighting him again. I don't mind kicking Decepticon ass any day of the week." something that was indeed a solid fact. Starscream's body suddenly came to life, red opticts relighting themselves and focusing before growing a dark red in loathing, the groan of damaged gears and hydrolics emmitting as he began to squirm, more frost and ice falling, "Well, look who'se awake."

"... Nevermind. Keep him as is, I don't want a Decepticon in my medical bay any longer than absolutely nessicary. It's still being made." Ratchet stated with a flat glare at the now awake Starscream, who returned the favor. Decepticons were prone to violence, and that was something he did not tolerate in his medical bay, "I have work to do. I'm sure you two will be plenty keen reguarding this situation on your own."

Starscream watched as the medical Autobot turned and began walking back down the hall in the opposite direction. He turned his head, finding it slightly difficult, (one of the hydrolics in his neck must have been busted) but scanned the area none the less. Too deep for a signal to Barricade, indoors, a command center? Autobots tended to have general soft spots for every sentient being in general, so it was safe to say it wouldn't be as bad as when Megatron would just have had enough of the air commander. That usually consisted of getting the oil beaten out of him and then being thrown in the brig until he was needed again, which usually didn't take too long. Ironhide on the other hand was probably going to make an acception to the whole 'soft spot for sentient beings' rule. Optimus Prime would work to balance it out, to a certain extent. Of course the odd thing was that the humans had a name for this sort of situation; 'good cop, bad cop'. Not that Starscream had been messing around while on his mission for the All Spark or anything... He was broken out of his musing upon feeling a distinct shift in warning before he was tossed down to the ground with a loud grunt, immediatly looking up.

Ironhide had thrown him into the brig, the Autobots having taken the liberty to reinforce the exit with energy bars. Not that Starscream was going anywhere soon anyway. Said energy bars were not active, so Ironhide stepped through, guesturing his arms wide,

"Welcome to your new home. This is going to be the only place you'll be seeing unless you be a good little Decepticon and talk with Optimus." spontaneously, the twin plasma cannons on Ironhide's arms morphed into action, for intimidation's sake, "Or, you can talk with me." he loved to show of his plasma canons, which always activated with a frightening 'whrrrr' sound. Ironhide watched as Starscream just scowled at them before sneering.

"And just what does the great _Optimus_ **_Prime_** need to know from me?" his tone was mocking, already practically saying 'I'm not telling you anything'. It made Ironhide growl and charge up his canons. Any reason at all and he'd gladly shoot the Decepticon. But Optimus stepped forward and held up an arm to stop him, ever patient.

"... Starscream. I want to know the status of the Decepticons." the request just made the jet arch a mechanical eyebrow, actually staying silent as he thought this over.

"... Why... do you want to know...?" was this some crazy Autobot step in sympathy or had Prime finally lost it?

"Have they chosen a leader yet?" he persisted. Optimus just watched as Starscream's opticals lightened in some more confusion before going into thought. His answer came a few moments later.

"No, they haven't." normally he would have then said that he would be the one to take over and lead the Decepticons to victory. But given his situation and possible termination by Ironhide (who had not put his plasma canons away) made him with-hold the remark. Limiting their information, despite his ego, was the best course of action.

"Are you planning on leading the Decepticons?" Ironhide stepped around Optimus, disengaging one of the canons and eyeing Starscream with a look that said 'depending on your answer, I may kill you'. Starscream just snorted slightly,

"Hnh. Not all the Decepticons are taking Megatron's fall so_ easily _as me. I haven't exactly made much contact to name myself Leader." although his previous command of the Decepticons partially assured his position of Leader, "I'm sure some only followed Megatron and would want all his ideals to be kept." even though all of them needed reviewing. Optimus gently maneuvered Ironhide back to state the offer he was hoping would work,

"... I wish to form a peace treaty with the remaining Decepticons and put an end to this war." if he could establish this and stop a Decepticon leader from emerging, it would be a huge step for Autobots to win the war overall. While it was highly unlikely that all the Decepticons would just give up ages of fighting and hatred toward Autobots, it would hopefully be a start. Of course, it would be easier if Starscream actually registered what he was saying. At the moment he was giving him a blank look resembling a blue error screen on human computers. Ironhide was the first to speak.

"Are you kidding me Optimus?! Even without Megatron leading them, there's no way they'd accept that! We should strike and wipe them all out, not offer them _peace._" Not one fiber in his being believed that Decepticons should be given a chance. Not after all they'd done on Cybertron, "They'd probably find such an offer downright _insulting_ and attack us immediatly!-" he had grabbed Optimus's shoulder to turn him to look him in the face, hoping that his long time friend was somehow malfunctioning. Starscream's voice interrupted his oncoming rant,

"I shall... consider it." he said it slowly with some deeper thinking clearly trailing the answer. Ironhide just gave him a blank look, not believing what he was hearing. Optimus merely nodded,

"Thank you. I shall return later to discuss this matter with you." he had turned and began to walk out, leaving Ironhide completely lost with confused anger boiling. The aggressive Autobot glared at Starscream for having allowed Optimus to even _think_ such a rediculous idea could work before turning to go after his leader,

"Optimus!"

Starscream just watched them leave, the energy bars activating as Ironhide quickly initiated them before running after his leader to further argue with him and possibly drag him to med. bay for a check up.

The idea of an alliance was completely rediculous. For Prime to even THINK of such a thing just further proved Autobot inferiority. You don't make friends with enemies; you destroy them. But if he thought such a thing was going to work, he wasn't going to stop him. What he needed now though was to get into contact with Barricade since he certainly wouldn't be able to get into contact with any long range Decepticons.

------------------------------ Main Command Room

"Optimus, what are you thinking!? Starscream tried to backstab Megatron every other mission, what makes you think he'll accept your treaty?" Ironhide was following his leader and trying to see the logic behind the peace treaty. He was of the solid opinion that Starscream was lying. Or he'd seriously damaged his mainframe in their fight.

"Ironhide, I know what you're thinking. While it is unlikely this will work, every bit helps. There are Decepticons that will not like Starscream or whoever else becomes their new leader. If we can bring any to our cause, it will be a victory." Optimus concluded

"You put too much faith in the Decepticons." Ironhide growled.

"That may be true. But we should give them a chance, just in case." he returned to the main, large consol, "... Keep a close optic on him." Ironhide gave his leader a rather withering look of doubt,

"... I'll keep both of them on him." he grumbled, walking away. He was in serious need of a shooting range.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------TBC!

I want to put comedy in here... so badly... oh so badly. I can just imagine Bumblebee talking with Starscream all bubbly like using the soundbyte and radio clippings, and Starscream giving him a deadpanned 'Honestly; I think you're an idiot.'

It's like... Zuko(Avatar) and comedy. Totally serious guy + Situation he's not used to Funny as hell

And uhh... I remembered the peace treaty thing from the sequal to Transformers: Armada, where some Decepticons joined the Autobots after Megatron fell.

Question! Where would Starscream most likely be working within an Autobot base? Communications and coordinations? Tech support? o.o target practice for Ironhide...?


	3. Adjustments

A/N:

Transformers: The Game

-Destroying the city as Blackout- Ah am GODZILLAAA!! -runs propeller blades along the sides of buildings- Destruction points! 8D??

Opinions on the game:

1. Controls are a bit too loose.

2. You get to destroy EVERYTHING. The story is following the movie (and it's crap, even screws up Sam and Mikaela), and otherwise it's robots destroying everything. I reccomend the Decepticon side because it's good to destroy everything on their side (destruction points).

3. The only ones that talk clearly are Jazz and Starscream.

4. It sounds like Megatron has Asthma. Which is funny as hell. And perhaps a little sad...

5. Fastest Transformer on foot is Soundwave (who you can't play, but is crazy fast), and fastest Transformer in camoflage is Starscream.

6. The 'Bonus Features' suck.

OVERALL: Rent the game. Play it. Send it back. Done. Your basic movie game, like Batman Begins. Not a keeper.

Back to the story.

I don't know Decepticon curses... So... I'm trying meh best. 

And I promised you (specific reviewer that said Barricade was their favorite) more Barricade. SO HERE HE IS. ... ish. I'm going to work humor in here. Somehow.

BTW. I did the whole Barricade scene to surround one quote that I had thought of. IF you can tell me which quote it is (from Barricade), I will base a scene off of one quote requested by you.

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------------------------------------ 8 months Prior, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean

A recent meteor fall had been detected in China. Just one. But with what had happened a few months ago, the U.S. Military had immediatly contacted any American jets within the vicinity. A F-22 Raptor responded that they were in the area, and had flown over to check. The meteor had caused a good ammount of damage (plowing through an office building), and the smoking crator still held the smouldering space rock. After a few minutes and confirming it was no threat, the jet had turned to head back.

"This is Lt. Hoffman, returning from reconnisance over-"

"STARSCREAM!" a voice had suddenly errupted on the communications, interrupting the pilot, who was unsurprisingly startled.

"What-? Who is this? Air 1, please respond." the controls in his hands had begun to pull away, veering up into the atmosphere.

"Lt. Hoffman, what is your situation?"

"Starscream! The humans have detected me at a checkpoint, I am reading Satelite pinpointing on my location." The jet had reached a frightening climb rate, the pilot's attempt at sending a distress call failing.

"Air 1, I have lost control of the Jet, it is acting outside of my will, the jet is heading-" there was a sudden hiss and clicking sound of the cockpit cover disengaging. At this point, the jet had almost completely exited the atmosphere, the seat throwing the pilot out and unbuckling him as the cockpit cover opened. Unfortunatly for the pilot, the parachute in jets were designed into the seat, leaving him with none. The end result being a rather spectacular and horrific event; burning up in the atmosphere as he re-entered.

---

"Ugh, I don't know how those _Autobots_ were able to stand having those humans ride inside of them." Starscream grumbled irritably, closing the cockpit lid and severing communications with the U.S. Airbase, who were trying to reach their pilot, "I'm locating their satelite, Barricade. I'm ordering you to stop running and destroy all of your persuers and witnesses." Starscream radioed. While he was up here, there wasn't any reason he shouldn't take out any satelites he ran into.

Several television channels and radiostations had shut down all over the world. Cell phone callers over nations had their calls suddenly cut. Most importantly; military satelites were blown to space debris. Those tracking Barricade were taken down, along with other tracking and communications sattelites all over the world. Damn it felt good to know that he was causing all those annoying humans down on Earth so much panic and grief. But the fun needed to end soon.

"Barricade, I've taken down several human sattelites, including the ones being used to transmit your location. What is the status of the humans in persuit of you?" Starscream had begun to re-enter the atmosphere, tracing the communications signal to locate the faux police car.

"I've encountered some... difficulty. Their helicopters have been outfitted with reinforced nets. I'm almost finished with the humans here." He sounded a little irrate, the sounds of success echoing as background noise, "Make sure there is no more air support coming."

"Already heading to your location." Starscream put up the hollogram image of a human pilot in his cockpit, using his thrusters to go even faster; speeds that could easily render a human unconcious.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been a while of quiet and little excitement. A few human jets that had been sent before the location and communications were lost had been easy prey for Starscream. From then it was a rather long and boring flight into the desert to meet up with Barricade.

"This is disgusting." the police car grumbled, slowing in the sand before transforming, "... I have _human_ in my gears." he picked up some sand to sprinkle it into the offending areas, grinding it in and trying to get rid of the smell.

"Your situation could have been much worse had it not been for me." Starscream didn't hesitate to remind him, earning a glare from the other Decepticon.

"... I hope you aren't expecting a 'thank you'." Barricade growled, quickly following up with another issue to avoid any complaints, "... Our situation as 'fugitives' is deplorable." Starscream just huffed a little and crossed his arms.

"The humans are bound to increase their technology to find us. All we can do is wait for Decepticon support." The air commander turned away a little to look at the fading sky, glaring. He'd been injured in that fight for the All Spark and couldn't survive the required flight back to Cybertron to actually get the support himself. And a certain part was required to repair that damage; one that he wouldn't be able to find on Earth. Barricade was giving him a calculating and somewhat deadpanned unbelieving look.

"... Why didn't you flee this hunk of primitive rock?" Starscream blinked his optics, turning around to look back at Barricade, who seemed set on getting an answer out of him even through the other's akward silence, "You CAN fly. Or did you forget that?" He added with a sneer of sarcasm which was not appreciated.

"Don't be rediculous! I know I can fly." He grumbled a bit angrily, trying to come up with an excuse, "Ehh... I couldn't... just leave a fellow Decepticon such as yourself behind... Someone has to make sure you stay functional." He'd started off a bit uneasily but picked up more confidence near the end. Barricade did not look convinced.

"... You can't fly through space, can you?" Starscream growled a bit, making Barricade grin in victory, "Hah!"

"Can it, Barricade!" Starscream raged immediatly, having been caught dead in a poorly thought out fib. And he hated to be laughed at, by anyone.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Present Time

"What're you doing? That is not an area that needs repairs." Starscream growled at Ratchet, who was quickly getting tired of the Decepticon watching him like a hawk. He'd insisted on doing his own repairs, but Optimus put his foot down and said that Ratchet would do the repairs. The Autobot had told Starscream that he needed to learn to trust others in order for this peace treaty to work.

"I'm deactivating your weapons systems. If we are going to be working together _with _the humans, you shouldn't need it." Ratchet responded curtly, going back to work to remove all his ammunition and disengaging weapon activation. The Decepticon sitting on his operation table emmited an annoyed 'whrr' and 'click' noise, looking away to sulk. Within a few moments though, he turned and looked back to watch his progress. His arm had been reattatched and repaired at the elbow, and he was recieving an energon transfusion at the same time to make up for that which he had lost. Normally the subject (in this case, Starscream) would have been offline for this, having lost too much energon. But the stubborn Decepticon had remained online and glared at Ratchet the whole time.

In all honesty, Optimus wasn't going to take the risk of an insincere Starscream, something that was more likely than the alternative. Also, the Decepticon needed some kind of a job around the base since being idle never did anyone any good. Said job was being decided by Optimus since the only answer he could get from Ironhide was to use Starscream as target practice.

"Watch it..." Starscream growled, eyeing the Autobot's surgical instruments coming close to lines and circuts that helped with general functionality in his fingers. Ratchet was getting fed up with his constant pestering,

"Starscream, either stop talking or I'll take your vocal capacitor off line too." Ratchet pulled back to glare up at the air commander, tools poised at the ready. Starscream just sneered at him,

"I'd like to see you try."

"Me too. And I'd help." Ironhide had just entered the medical bay, casting a glare at Starscream who returned the look before adverting his optics, "How's it coming?" he walked to Ratchet's side to keep the mechanic between himself and Starscream. The medic just sighed a bit irritably,

"It would be a bit faster if _he_ wasn't complaining so much. Obviously Decepticons have trouble trusting one another in their own ranks for repairs." He shot Starscream a pointed look, who was still sulking, "Something that is not a concern with _Autobots._" Tools came back to life and continued their work, moving up to fix a hydrolic in the Decepticon's neck. Starscream just glared but winced slightly and gripped the edges of the table he was sitting on as Ratchet went back to work. Autobots could trust _Autobots,_ Decepticons didn't trust anyone. This went double for Starscream. He could rely on what others would do, but not 'trust'. And having all of his ammunition pulled out of him really didn't make him feel safe.

"Anyway, I'm here because _Optimus Prime_ asked me to show you your new job around here. We're still fixing up this human base to make it our own. You'll help. And I'll be watching." If Ironhide wasn't around, someone else would watch Starscream to make sure he didn't do anything bad. Starscream just looked kind of offended,

"All of my skills and all you can do with them is fix your stupid base?" he hissed, glaring. Ironhide crossed his arms,

"It'll change later. Maybe. It's either that or you work in the shooting range. With me." The plasma canons engaged, charging with another doom-suggesting 'vmmmm'. Ratchet turned, stopping his work on Starscream's hydrolic, nerves clearly down to the wire,

"Ironhide," his voice was tense, "if you do not put those cannons away, the next time you are in my med bay, you will leave under the belief that you are a 10 year old human girl." Such a threat was clearly not anticipated, and made Ironhide take a step back, arching a mechanical eyebrow severely,

"... You can do that?" Being a medic clearly had its advantages by knowing Transformers' circuits better than they did. It was also hard to tell when Ratchet was lying. Said Autobot had a dangerous gleam in his optics,

"I'll have Bumblebee repaint you to be pink with flowers." Ironhide's optics blinked, for a moment calculating whether or not such a thing was possible before quickly disengaging his cannons and leaving,

"I'll be waiting outside." The door was shut behind him rather quickly. Starscream couldn't help but to laugh at the trigger-friendly Autobot's deffeat. His laughing stopped rather quickly when Ratchet shoved a sharp instrument into one of his gashes,

"Ow!"

"And _you_ are close to getting your circuits rewired." the mechanic grumbled, continuing his repairs. Starscream just sulked and gripped the table again slightly, looking away. He needed to get in contact with Barricade again, somehow.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TBC

Ustah; humor. Starscream is going to get a new paint job... his traditional red and white. Via Bumblebee.

Anyone catch ze stolen threat from X-men? And Ironhide reaaaally wants to shoot Starscream...

And an angry doctor is always good humor.


	4. Mad Skillz

So how are we adjusting?

A/N: ... I have no idea how Clint Eastwood talks really. Gah.

And as far as Starscream's electronic lingo... I'm making it up as I go along. Ish... :O he sounds so smart!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Somewhere in the New Mexico desert

Starscream had exited the medical bay in some relief, though mostly sulking since his weapons systems had been taken offline. Ironhide was leaning against the wall to his right outside the door, waiting for him. Both exchanged silent loathing glares before Ironhide uncrossed his arms and pushed off from the wall,

"... Well? You coming or what?" The Autobot growled, obviously enjoying this about as much as Starscream. Said Decepticon just continued glaring and motioned for Ironhide to lead the way. But he wasn't about to have a Decepticon walk _behind_ him, so instead motioned for Starscream to go ahead of him. There was another tense silence of mutual hatred before Starscream gave in and walked forward with Ironhide guiding him from behind, "We go left here." Ironhide placed a hand on Starscream's shoulder to guide him, making the Decepticon tense up and jerk his shoulder away from him.

"Don't touch me, Autobot." No matter how much Optimus would like and want for the two to get along, it wasn't going to happen. Ironhide had removed his hand with a slight shove forward.

"Just move it, punk." He growled. The both of them walked on in mutual silence until they reached a doorway that Ironhide told him to stop at, pressing the open button on the pannel next to the door. "That's the terminal you'll be starting at. It's not in use, so it won't interrupt anything in progress like communications." Starscream analyzed the terminal carefully, looking skeptical,

"... _This_ is going to be a part of your base of operations?"

"Just shut up and work. Don't try anything funny because I'll be watching." Plasma cannons charge behind Starscream once more, adding the unspoken 'or else'.

Their conversation (if it could be called such) faded quickly, the only sound now being the clink and clatters of Starscream pulling at wires within the large hole in a computer terminal they had recently built for Autobot size. And no, the hole had not been torn open; they had removed a panel to get to the wires. At the moment, the small clinks and pulling movements from Starscream had become more tense as he progressed. Finally he pulled out from the terminal, numerous wires in hand, very annoyed look on his face,

"Rrrgh..." Starscream cast a whithering glare at Ironhide, "What _imbicile _wired this?" The wires were held up in his hands for emphasis that there was clearly a lot of work ahead of him. Ironhide glared back at him, hydrolics tensing a bit,

"We're a little short on help. I did it with some humans." The demolitions expert responded, glare just daring him to try and dissrespect his work. Starscream on the other hand just scoffed as if to say 'I thought so'. Which of course made Ironhide want to shoot him. Again. Lots of things the Decepticon did made Ironhide want to shoot him.

"Well do me a favor and do not _ever_ deal with electronics in here again." Starscream was pulling apart some of the wiring with expertise, clearly focused on his work while Ironhide fumed behind him for having been told that his wiring skills were bad, "The wiring is inefficient by far. Primitive at best." Starscream was just ignoring the angry Autobot behind him by now, clearly in 'the zone' as Sam called it, "I can easily improve energy efficiency by two-hundred percent." The Decepticon was combing through the wires and looking at them all carefully, pulling out some of them entirely and tossing them aside before reattaching others. There was a few moments of silence in which Starscream just worked and Ironhide decided this was the most boring and aggrivating job he'd ever had.

"... Mind telling me what you're doing exactly?" Ironhide asked a bit gruffly, since he had nothing better to do. Starscream didn't answer for a while, eyeing more wires and scanning them to see where they went.

"... Rerouting power more directly. Getting rid off this useless clutter," He pulled out a group of wires with a slight growl of annoyance for emphasis, "... connecting communications so they make _sense_, and increasing this terminal's abilities and range over the base." There was another pause as he scanned the wires and clipped them before reconnecting them, "... You have everything short ranged, don't you? This terminal can only control functions within a certain vicinity of it?" Ironhide was trying to see his point at this rate.

"Yeah...? Same with all the terminals. It was a rushed job." He sounded a bit deffensive about it since everyone had pitched in for what they could, "What do you know about electronics anyway? You're an air commander." Ironhide grumbled, watching as Starscream pushed finished wiring back into the terminal and pulled out more to examine them. The air commander just scoffed.

"Lord _Megatron_ didn't always prioritize in favor of keeping everything running as much as winning." There was a loud wrenching noise as another group of wires were pulled, "So keeping everything running fell to me when Megatron wasn't being energon conservative." Starscream's voice was in a rather bitter and annoyed tone at the memory. He reached in farther to connect other wires and see where certain connections led, "If you can't minimize the usage anymore, then you have to change _how _it's used." More wires were tossed out behind him, "Maximize efficiency." there was an electronic fizzling noise from inside and a small flash of light as a spark went off, earning a growl from Starscream. Ironhide was (sadly) impressed that Starscream was so well rounded. Though the reason he knew how to repair himself and improve electronics was that Decepticons were more or less; BAD with teamwork. While knowing how to do everything yourself was good, Ironhide liked being able to trust others better. Trusting others with electronics instead of doing them himself allowed him to become the top-notched warrior that he was. And not getting his tailpipe whooped like Starscream had was always a plus.

"... Optimus is right you know. You'll need to learn to _get along_ with others if you want this peace treaty to work." Ironhide figured a change of subject was in order, and it was to another issue he was seriously doubting. Plus you tend not to think about lying when you were absorbed in work, which seemed to be what Starscream was doing. The Decepticon just scoffed, making Ironhide narrow his optics.

"Between Autobots and Decepticons, 'getting along' is a far stretch. Not killing each other is a better start." Starscream's voice echoed from inside the terminal, acompanied by the sounds of work, "Prime is fooling himself if he thinks all Decepticons are going to just accept this after years of hating Autobots." Even though Ironhide agreed with Starscream, he still had to stand up for Optimus.

"... It would help if you actually put an effort toward the peace treaty."

"And just what do you think I'm doing in here? There is no way that all Autobots are going to 'get along' as well. There's a bit of a _trust_ issue between us. It's most likely that the Decepticons will become divided with the death of Megatron." There was a loud bang as Starscream's arm collided against one of the walls within the terminal after pulling on some wires and having them come out more easily than originally thought. As an added note, "... You're going to need longer rolls of wire in order to link controls farther through the base. Though it would be best to connect all terminals together in order to share functions. With the exception of the holding area and access to the power grid." Those two should have restricted access due to their importance. Ironhide let his mind wander a bit on the issue of 'trust' and 'Decepticons'.

"... If you Decepticons knew how to trust one another with individual tasks, you could be a better fighter." Of course he couldn't help adding a smug tinge to his voice, which made Starscream stop his work and pull out of the terminal, glaring bullets.

"Are you trying to say I'm no good on the battle field?" Ironhide tilted his head about as if thinking about it.

"Well you _were _taken down and captured by a bunch of _humans..."_ Starscream was still glaring at him.

"I was not taken down by those insignifigant little meat bags."

"Ohh you're right. _I _took you down."

"You didn't do it on your own."

"Are you saying I _couldn't _have done it on my own?" Their verbal battle was heating up fairly quickly.

"Yes I am. You Autobots can't do anything on your own. Without your _comrads,_ you're useless and weak." Surprisingly, Ironhide didn't pull out his cannons, but took a step forward with a smug grin on his face as he poked at Starscream's chest.

"Then I think you would make a _fine _Autobot since you're obviously so weak on your own." Starscream pulled back in slight shock (and maybe a little admiration) at the quick and effective comeback. But no one beat him in insults, mostly because they quickly ended with gunfire and he tended to be quicker on the draw. He couldn't help but to grin and lean forward assertively to counter,

"And you would make a fine _Decepticon _with your habit for destruction." Ironhide hadn't expected such a quick response, and was having trouble taking a taste of his own medicin. His plasma cannons engaged,

"You take that back. I am not like a Decepticon." He growled threateningly. Starscream, however, didn't back down, just sneering directly into his face,

"Oh really? Then how _does _one blow up a planet on accident?" Ironhide was oh-so very close to losing it.

"That planet was going to go anyway." He growled, plasma cannons charging. The both of them were interrupted, luckily, by the sound of the door sliding open, the peace maker himself standing in the doorway; Optimus Prime. There was a moment of silence in which he assessed the situation before talking.

"... I'm going to assume the both of you are getting along well." Optimus watched as Ironhide disengaged his cannons and stepped away from Starscream.

"There's no way I'm going to work with this slagging Decepticon." Ironhide pointed at Starscream for emphasis. Starscream knew that Optimus's presence pretty much guaranteed he wouldn't be shot. So of course; he pushed his luck

"What's the matter, can't hold a decent conversation without blowing something up?" He sneered, nudging Ironhide's arm where the cannon was. Ironhide pulled his arm away and swatted at him.

"Pipe down, punk. Mommy and daddy are talking." Ironhide growled. He was used to talking with his fists, so a verbal battle was something he was a novice at. Up against a pro. Starscream just grinned,

"Oh really? Does this make you the daddy or the mommy?" The destructive Autobot could have blown a gasket from Starscream's pestering and insults,

"The daddy!" He blinked after a moment, turning to look at Optimus who had his arms crossed and eyebrow raised slightly as he watched the two fight, "Uh... not that I'm saying you're... the mommy, Optimus." Ironhide supplied a bit akwardly. Starscream had broken out in laughter behind him, arms curling accross his gut as he doubled over. He'd successfully lured Ironhide into a verbal trap. Which the spoken of Autobot was not very happy about.

"You shut up before I make you shut up!"

"Now Ironhide-"

"Oh yeah? You and what army, _Autobot_?"

"ARGH!" Ironhide leaped at Starscream, forsaking his guns and just punching the jet in the face. Who of course retaliated and fought back as they fell over and fought rolling around on the ground. Optimus just sighed, wondering if Ironhide's weaponry should be taken away from him the next time he had to watch Starscream.

"Alright, the both of you calm down." Optimus stepped forward, grabbing both of them and managing to pull them apart AND pin them down, though they were both struggling, "CHILDREN." He tightened his grip on both of them to make them cease their struggles. Which they did, death glares aimed at one another. Optimus sighed, "You are going to both have to work together and learn to get along if you want to set an example to others."

"There's no way I'm working with _him!_" They both yelled in unison. Optimus Prime let the both of them up,

"Ironhide, you need to calm down. Starscream, you will show me your work with the terminal." Both transformers were brushing themselves off, exchanging glares before walking away from one another, Starscream walking to the terminal and bringing it to life to check the latest improvements. Optimus stopped behind him to overview it.

"More work still needs to be done. If there had been a decent _electrician_ amongst you, this could be done faster." Optimus had ignored the spiteful comment, merely watching the updates and scanning the inner wiring of the computer.

"... This is... impressive work, Starscream." Optimus stood back up, looking over at the Decepticon, "We can certainly get our base of organization going faster with you working with us." Starscream just scoffed, processor already going over all the things he'd have to fix.

"I'll have to rewire the entire base." He grumbled irritably, "It will take MONTHS." Starscream turned the terminal off, pulling more wires out again to continue his work. The intercom crackled to life, all but Starscream looking up, since he was absorbed in his work. It was Ratchet's voice.

"Optimus, Ironhide; Bumblebee has arrived with Sam. They have what you requested." Ironhide seemed to brighten slightly, glancing over at Optimus with a rather evil grin. His leader merely nodded to Ironhide before looking over at Starscream. Ironhide grinned,

"Come on Starscream, we have a little surprise for you." There was a rather long pause, Starscream pulling out from the terminal slowly.

"... I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"Probably not." Optimus walked to the door, opening it.

"Come on you two." Starscream stood and walked to the door, Ironhide behind him as they followed Optimus down the hall. The Decepticon couldn't help but to grin secretly, knowing the coded message he'd made for Barricade had been sent while he had access to the terminal.

---------------------------------- TBC!!!!!!!

:O Oooo, cliff hanger!

Leave it to Optimus Prime to make sure everything turns out okay and make sure people don't kill eachother.

Starscream and Ironhide get along great, eh? Like an old married couple... Love-hate relationship kinda thing. Love to hate... kinda thing...

:3 oh there is going to be much fun.


	5. Ideas

'Pranks'?

A/N:

Reading over the past chapter, I realized Ironhide seems rather out of character. I do believe that it shall be blamed upon Starscream because having a Decepticon in close range that he couldn't shoot and had to actually put UP with is driving him craaazyyy. And thus victum to stupid, childish plays on words like the 'mommy and daddy' one in the last chapter.

My sister is insisting odd quirks galore. Painting flowers on Starscream during the paint job. Having him play video games on Earth. The only one I accepted really was OCD reguarding tasks. Like... he HAS to get them done, and do them well. Which makes fixing electronics his practice... Archiving and report organizing stuff too I guess?

Your thoughts?

o.o Ze grumpy maintanence dood

Since he was a scientist, I suppose he'd be good at those long tasks that take much patience... And technical know how.

CHAPTER 3's QUOTE FROM BARRICADE: "This is disgusting... I have _human _in my gears."

Starscream's approach to humans is along the lines of Invader Zim's approach to humans...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Near the Entrance, in the Opening Bay Hangar, Former Missile Containment Area

Starscream glanced back at Ironhide before looking up and then forward, trying to remember his way around the base since it seemed he would be stuck here for a while. Their arrival at the converted hangar heralded Sam Witwicky removing cans of something from Bumblebee's back and passenger seat. He paused and turned as they all approached him, eyes locking on the unfamiliar Transformer. That must have been the one Bumblebee had been trying to tell him about through the radio clips. Which was a bit difficult, but he'd done a good job. The Decepticon was currently eyeing him with distaste, so Sam decided to break the ice a little.

"... Eh-heh-heh-heh... Hey there, big guy." He already felt stupid, AND in danger. Starscream just growled and turned his head to look away. Ironhide on the other hand planned on making Starscream pay for every moment of pissing him off. Childish and unprofessional though it may be to be trying to get at an enemy in this way, it was better than getting blown to slag. For Starscream anyway. Ironhide pushed the Decepticon a little from behind, earning a confused but still hateful look.

"If you're going to be living on Earth, you'll learn to get along with humans, _Starscream._ Now say 'hi'." He gave him a rather rough nudge, earning a glare. Bumblebee transformed behind Sam after all the cans were unloaded as Starscream eyed the human.

"... Greetings, murderer." Starscream got a smack over the head from Ironhide for not playing nice, growling and looking behind him at Ironhide, hissing, "He should be proud to have been the one to take down Megatron." Ironhide just crossed his arms.

"You didn't have to say it like that." Sam and everyone else in the room could sense the tension between the two. Optimus just sighed, but knew it would ultimately be up to them to resolve their conflict. He would help, however, to make sure to minimize the damage.

"Ehm... right. Thank you, I suppose, it's nice to meet you too. Star... scream... was it?" The Decepticon nodded before turning to glare at Ironhide, his main source of conflict.

"There, introductions made. If you don't mind, I'd like to get back to work." Optimus was the one who stepped in to say no.

"Starscream. The Human Military has requested this specifically. We agreed to their terms and negotiated down from deactiving you completely." And since termination was generally a bad thing, Optimus had Starscream's attention. "If they couldn't have you deactivated, they didn't want you to have the ability to hide amongst their own should you turn against them." Optimus guestured towards the paint cans, "Being a drastically different color will allow the human military to identify you." Starscream was giving him a deadpanned look. While it wasn't as bad as deactivation, he still didn't like it.

"You must be joking." Ironhide clapped a hand on his shoulder, grim grin in place.

"Bumblebee and Sam are going to be doing the painting. And the colors... well they really could be a lot worse." Sam had been opening paint cans while Bumblebee helped to carefully pour the paint into spray canisters. They'd also gotten several rolls of painters tape to make the lines clean. Starscream wasn't the least bit happy with the arrangement. Bumblebee had taken the oportunity to strike a dramatic rockstar pose, pointing at Starscream as he played out a human sound clip from the radio.

"Are you ready to rock?!" Starscream clapped a hand to his face with a doomed groan.

"... I hate you."

Ironhide laughed at him.

--------------------------------------------------------------

It was hours later until the painting was done, Ironhide had left a while ago to start working on a shooting range and perhaps an obstical course since he would probably need it. And Starscream would be the lucky one to review and fix all the bugs in the new systems. A shooting range was generally easy to set up, but making it more complicated with moving targets AND have it indoors was what was needed on this planet in order to make everyone happy. Having a stray shot become involved in some civilian trouble would be bad afterall.

As far as the colors he had been painted, Ironhide was right; it could have been worse. Starscream had been painted white and red, minimal black still remaining. It didn't change the fact he was still complaining about it though, and had been warning Sam and Bumblebee not to get paint on the floor because he certainly wasn't going to clean up that mess. In the end, Bumblebee had managed to get Starscream to cooperate and drape a sheet over him in order to unveil their finished work to Optimus, Ironhide, and Ratchet. All three Autobots had been gathered and showed Starscream's 'makeover'. They had approved, and then stuck him with Ironhide again to continue his work. Neither Transformer was thrilled about this.

"Optimus, shouldn't I be out there helping the human's military search for Barricade?" He was pretty sure continued companionship with Starscream was going to either result in a dead Decepticon (not necessarily a bad thing), or holes in their base (definetly a bad thing). Optimus shook his head a little as they all walked back to the main area of the base.

"I will be helping the military with that. While it is true that we could switch places, you will need to learn to get along with Decepticons in order for this peace treaty to work." The Autobot Leader's word tended to be final. Ironhide sulked and glared at Starscream, who didn't seem to be listening, but sulking about his paintjob. Starscream looked up after a moment when they had reached their parting place.

"I'm going to need longer rolls of wires and blueprints of this base. Along with an electronic pad to check the progress and status." Optimus had paused to think about his request.

"... You will have the wires and blueprints of the areas you need. We'll hold off on the electronic pad..." Giving a former (in theory) enemy too much information crossed the line between giving Starscream a chance and letting him take advantage of them. Starscream just 'hmph'ed and crossed his arms, but let out a loud cough and stumbled as Ironhide landed a 'consolation pat' on his back that was probably harder than it needed to be.

"C'mon you, I've got something I want you to help me with," Starscream didn't hold back on the unenthusiastic groan and hiss, shoulders sagging as he anticipated some kind of mess Ironhide had made just for him, "It's something probably even you'll enjoy. I know I'll need it." Now that statement had him confused, regaining his stride and shaking off the other's heavy hand.

"Oh really? And just what might that be?" He really was curious about the few things they had in common. Optimus seemed to have been more informed than him, since he nodded and turned to go back to his large monitoring terminal with a parting well-wish.

"It will be good for you two to work on something you are both intirested in." Starscream was starting to feel like a disruptive and uncooperative sparkling in a care center the way Optimus continuously tried to get him and Ironhide to work together. And being thought of as anything less than an equal if not superior in standing always ticked him off. All of this resulting in getting Starscream in an even worse mood.

"Is anyone going to tell me what I'm going to be working on?" Annoyance lined his question heavily. Ironhide wasn't too regretful about finally telling him.

"I started on a shooting range. Since mechanics seem to be your strong point, I figured you would be able to finish and fix anything." And it was true. Starscream had perked at the concept of a shooting range, already clearly thinking about it seriously, which made Ironhide and Optimus pleased. Ratchet had already left a while ago and hadn't stopped to chat with them.

"... As much as I'd hate to admit it; that does sound like a good idea," Starscream admitted, glancing at Ironhide to see the somewhat smug look on his face. "Alright fine, drag me off to whatever mess you made and are calling a shooting range."

------------------------------------------------------ More than a few miles from Starscream's location (Florida): Bad Idea in progress

It was approaching the evening in the less favorable area of Miami, and the approaching darkness drew out the night life. Flashy lights were being set up, and wanna-be gang bangers crawled out of their pot-filled holes. This tended to be the area that the Police would draw straws to see who the unlucky one was to patrol the area. Ghetto gangs ruled this area of town mostly, so the local authorities weren't thought very highly of. Perhaps that, and the few hits of some sort of drug, had brought about this situation.

At the moment, two of the population of wanna-be gang bangers were strutting their way down their supposed territory, walking the sort of walk required in order to stop their pants from falling around their ankles. Something caught their ego-blown eyes, meriting a grab and readjustment of their supposedly room-requiring manhoods as they approached.

"Yo, man, check it: Cop car."

"Eh? There's no one in there," Roi leaned forward with daring courage and gangsta style against the police car's door - looking around inside for anything he could take (it looked completely empty). Getting a kick-ass idea, he grinned and looked around before jumping to slide across the hood of the police car, trying the door. Locked. "Yo, keep an eye out." He nodded to his homie gangsta, Dwayne. With a questioning look followed by a grin and nod of understanding, Dwayne pulled out his status empowering hand gun and kept it by his side as he looked around. Roi took off his shirt and rolled it around his fist before punching the window like he had seen in the movies. THWUMP! "Ow!! Fuck! Gah...!" Dwayne stood up more on the other side of the car, looking over the top at his homie.

"Yo, whats your problem?" Roi just grabbed at his wrapped up fist, glaring at the car window and cursing.

"Nothing, just that this Goddamn window is fuckin' bullet proof." Dwayne just rolled his eyes and pulled his hand back to smack the gun against the glass. Said glass broke with a small spiderwebbed pattern upon impact. The sirens suddenly blared to life in alarm, both would-be car stealers panicking and Dwayne firing a few rounds into the glass, making small holes, but not shattering it. Perhaps they would have been a little more cautious when the assaulted window rolled down on its own if they weren't panicking. Thinking quickly, Dwayne quickly crawled into the car through the open window and unlocked the diver door before slapping at the radio and controls, trying to turn the siren off. Both didn't notice the window rolling back up quietly, the siren shutting off when the window was closed all the way. Roi and Dwayne sighed inwardly, looking at one another with an adrenalin enduced grin for being so bad-assed as to steal a cop car. Roi had begun to fumble around a bit to get to the wires in order to start the car, Dwayne leaning over and trying to see what he was doing. The car started. Apparently he'd done _something_ right, so Roi sat up with excitement as if getting into a birthday present.

"MAGGOTS! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY WINDOW??!!!" A violent mechanical voice raged suddenly from the radio, making both intruders jump. The door locks engaged, making them panic more and try to open the door.

"What the fuck, man?!" Dwayne yanked at the door, beating against the glass with the butt of his gun. The seat he was in suddenly dropped back in a recline before abruptly coming back up to catapault him against the windshield and dash board.

"YOU WILL _PAY_ FOR DESECRATING MY EXTERIOR, HUMANS." Barricade roared, the engine echoing his angry yell as the car lurched forward. Both 'Homie G's' were about to soil themselves at this rate, unintelligable yells and screams to be let out filling the car. The police car was thrown full gear into action, burning rubber as it reached high velocity down the alleyway. The disguised Decepticon pulled a sharp turn down the alley as it curved, throwing the two intruders against the side of the door. His sirens wailed to drown out the human's screams as he tore down the narrow alley, turning sharply and throwing them against the other side of the car's interior. Perhaps if they hadn't been 'too gangsta' for seatbelts, this wouldn't have happened.

"FUCK FUCK FUCK OH MY GOD!" The humans continued to scream and beat at the windows, trying to open the doors. Barricade was heading down a much wider, dead end alley. Upon realizing this, Roi and Dwayne renewed their screams and tried to claw their out of the front seats. Breaks were slammed on with precision, car skidding to a halt and just tapping the wall, throwing the humans into the window shield with full force. The fear caused them to finally lose it and soil themselves. Barricade's pheramone sensors picked up on it rather quickly.

"...What is-?" His sensors finally locked onto the defined scent, killing his sirens, "THAT IS **DISGUSTING**! GET! OUT!" Barricade screamed, doors unlocking and opening quickly, seats throwing the two intruders out to smack into the alley's walls. Within seconds Barricade transformed, grabbing up one of the humans and flinging him over the roof tops above to pay for the soiled seats. He turned and stomped on the other one, silencing his screams with a sickening 'crunch'. He shook his foot and scraped it along the cracked concrete, growling. That was the worst wake up from recharge he'd ever had. And he smelled ontop of it. Those stupid humans had made it even harder for him to camoflage into the human's society. Now he needed to get rid of the smell and repair the glass window.

Humans were completely worthless wastes of space.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TBC

Barricade for the win:D

I loved his scene where he was interrogating Sam about the glasses. The perfect scary, yell-y kind of scene.

Still major Ironhide vs. Starscream things happening here. They hate eachother. Bad for keeping the base/them intact. Good for us. o.o hmh.

Your personal opinions and ideas for more fun are always accepted.

:D and may even be used in ze story!

Will more Transformers arrive on Earth?! Maybe. Will Barricade join Starscream soon?? o.o not sure. Will he make fun of Starscream's mandatory paint job??!! Probably.

And what's that? Which side is Starscream going to side with? o.o ... o.- I'll never tell. But your input is appreciated anyway.


	6. Shooting Range Fun

Chapter 6…

Lucky number.

And Barricade's scene in the last chapter was waaay too short when I read it over. Unsatisfactory. I'll do better next time. e.e;;

"… Ugh." Starscream was currently glaring at a shiney piece of scrap metal he had picked up, able to see his reflection in it. Ironhide had paced back to see what he was doing, looking perplexed. He wouldn't have pegged Starscream for being the preening type.

"See anything good in there?" Starscream lowered the metal, glaring at Ironhide for so much as existing.

"This paint is tactically useless. It has no advantages." He grumbled. Ironhide just rolled his eyes.

"That's the point. Now help me reinforce the walls." Ironhide picked up one of the plates of compacted steel, holding it against the lower corner of one of the sides of the room to start securing it to the wall. Starscream just scoffed, dropping the metal and walking out to the middle of the room to where wires were sticking out of a maintanence panel.

"That's more suited to _your_ area of expertise. I'm here to fix your wiring." Starscream stated, figuring that Ironhide couldn't mess up such a simple task as he started on the wiring. Atleast everything had controls connected… He'd probably have to do the programming too though. Now that such an idea as a shooting range had been brought to light, he couldn't help but want to make it more elaborate and automated. Which meant that if someone such as _Ironhide_ or _Bumblebee_ messed with the programming, the shooting range might actually try to shoot them. Oddly enough, Starscream had more faith in Optimus and Ratchet in not screwing up electronics nearly so badly as the other two Autobots. Or atleast they would stop messing with the programming before the shooting range decided to turn against them.

"Fine, whatever you stupid geek." Ironhide grumbled, his strength easily forcing screws into the metal plates to fixate them to the wall.

"I'd rather be a 'geek' than an idiot like you." Starscream ripped out some uncooperative wiring, fixing others to their proper locations and mentally mapping out the grid he'd need to create. There was a grinding and snapping sound as Ironhide broke off one of the heads of the screws.

"What did you call me?" He growled, easily ticked off at the Decepticon.

"Oh, I get it; you're a special _kind_ of stupid."

"What did you say?!"

"Oh nothing; it ruins the mood to have to say something a second time. My breath doesn't need to be wasted on you." Starscream didn't even need to concentrate to win verbal battles against Ironhide. He smirked a little at this fact. BANG! The Decepticon froze, sensing a solid shot going past his head, probably missing on purpose. He looked over at a rather smug looking Ironhide, who clearly felt his fustration level going down at the look of surprise on Starscream's face.

And then the lights suddenly shut off.

…………

"… WHAT DID YOU SHOOT?!" Starscream screamed at him in the dark, no light filtering in from the hallway since the door was closed. All they could see were the glows of each other's optics. Even if he had made a mistake, Ironhide wasn't about to admit it.

"Well if I'd had it my way, I would have shot you." He grumbled, unable to hold back a grin as Starscream growled loudly in irritation. Ironhide could hear him stand and move carefully, trying to find the hole he'd just shot into the wall. Switching visions only did so much when you were working with precise, _fried_ component in the pitch black darkness. Ironhide had to take SOME responsibility since he did create the problem. He did this by turning on the headlights he had, finding it an advantage for once by being a car in disguise instead of a jet. Starscream had pulled back slightly from the wall to look over at Ironhide; the source of the light.

"… Come here and point the light at the hole while I fix this," Starscream ordered, trying to carefully sort through the shot wiring and find the main power cord. ZAP! "Agh!" Ironhide hadn't even gotten terribly close to Starscream before the Decepticon successfully electrocuted himself, getting thrown back onto the floor.

"… You alright?" Starscream just groaned, gears creaking as he sat up slowly, before grumbling irritably, ignoring Ironhide.

"Should have shut the power off before doing anything… We need to find Prime and tell him to shut the power off to this room. Get some torches while you're at it." Starscream instructed, standing and walking to the door, still irritable that his impatience to get the power line for the lights fixed had gotten him electrocuted. Ironhide helped to make sure neither of them tripped until they reached the doorway, opening it to find Bumblebee standing there, looking confused, somewhat tense, but mostly curious. Starscream was surprised at first, but then just glared at him. Ironhide was the one to speak up,

"Hey Squirt," He tilted his head slightly to the side in question, "What's up?" Bumblebee closed his fingers and held the thumb and pointer finger extended to imitate guns, cocking his hand and jerking the wrist to indicate gunfire. Ironhide just laughed a bit, "Yeah… that's why the lights are out… Can you find us some torches?" Bumblebee nodded and gave Ironhide an exaggerated salute before walking down the hall. That kid could brighten any bot's day. Except for maybe Starscream, who scowled at the overly-enthusiastic bot. Ironhide smacked him lightly on the arm to get his attention back as they started down the hall. Time to fix the lights….

---------------------------------------------------------- Main Control Room

Optimus Prime sighed at length, finding his roll as father amongst everyone becoming more and more frequent, "Ironhide, I trusted you to watch over Starscream because I believed you wouldn't do something like this." Ironhide just sulked in return, crossing his arms and looking away.

"I can't help it. This fragging idiot doesn't know when to shut up." He grumbled. Starscream scoffed.

"If you had half a processor, you'd figure out how to avoid these little scoldings." Starscream sneered. Ironhide's plasma cannon on his right hand engaged, bring it up to the Decepticon's face.

"Can it, you. Before I blow you to slag." He growled. Starscream just leaned forward a bit daringly,

"Ooo, is that the _Decepticon_ in you talking?" Ironhide's temper flared, cannon charging.

"Why you-!" Optimus had to step in again.

"Ironhide! … If you cannot control yourself, I will have your weapons systems taken offline. Starscream, do not antagonize him or you will have a time-out in the brig," Both transformers were sulking now, "I'm going to turn off the power to that room. The both of you can head back now." He dismissed them. They turned and walked back the way they came, both miffed at one another and silent.

---------------------------------------------------------- Back in the Shooting Range To-Be

"Alright. I don't like you, and you don't like me. But can we at least PRETEND we get along?" Ironhide did not find Optimus giving him a talking to very fun. At the moment Starscream was working on the shot power line with Ironhide holding up a torch to light the way for him. Bumblebee had brought several of the large lights, which had brightened Ironhide's day as much as one could. Starscream seemed to be ignoring him for the good part of a minute before pausing his work.

"This is me 'getting along' with you. This is how I got along with fellow Decepticons too," He grumbled, before going back to reconnecting and replacing required parts. It wasn't terribly hard, and he was finished rather quickly. "… That should do it. Go tell Optimus that he can turn the power back on."

"And leave you to your own devices? Not a chance." By some stroke of luck or fate, the door opened, Bumblebee standing there and peeking in, baby blue optics looking around curiously. Ironhide waved at him, "Hey Bee." And then the idea. "… Alright, I'll go tell Optimus to turn the power back on. Bee; you stay here and watch Starscream." The Decepticon scoffed.

"I don't need to be baby-sat. Especially not by a youngling." He grumbled. Bumblebee on the other hand seemed to have accepted the job, giving Ironhide a nod as he walked into the room. The torch was handed to Bumblebee as Ironhide passed him, walking to the door.

"Watch him close, Bee. And if the punk tries anything; shoot him." Bumblebee just gave him a thumbs up, watching as Ironhide left the room and kept the door open. Starscream grumbled something incoherent and went to pick up the other extra torches to place around the room. There was more wiring to be done after all, and he didn't need Ironhide here for that.

Things went smoothly for the next few minutes, a few small sparks coming from the wiring as Starscream used given tools. So far, ignoring Bumblebee had worked just fine, until the young bot walked over to him and began to lean and trying to see what he was doing. As if he'd understand any of it. Finally it got to the point where he had to say _something._

"What do you want?" It was, of course, asked in a non-friendly tone. For what seemed like a long few moments; Bumblebee just stared at him with those baby-blue optics before pulling back and playing some human radio clips about 'toothpaste' and 'dentists'. Whatever those were.

You know… 'cause… in the movie, they made the Decepticons and stuff have scary teeth….

Short Chapter, I know. Running out of ideas. But I do know what I want in the end. They all need more bonding time… And things need to get more complicated too. So Suggest more scenarios, Decepticon and Autobot arrivals, and general daily-activities.


	7. Complicated

Chapter 7

Okay, yes I know it was odd for Ironhide to be concerned for Starscream. Chalk it up to his being a 'good guy'. And if anyone noticed, Starscream said 'Optimus' instead of just 'Prime' in the last chapter. THEREFORE PROVING THAT HE IS BEING ASSIMALATED INTO THE SIDE OF GOOD. …. Or something like that.

And by the way, I do not know/think it is possible to 'slash' robots. O.o 's just my personal opinion

And my thanks goes out to Susinko for her input. .

o.o you need to elaborate with me on how his capture would be effecting his bwain. ... So send me an IM! Contact info is on my userpage. I'm available on AIM all day during most weekends until further notice.

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_Barricade, I am with the Autobots. Their base of operations is a former human missile silo. Prime is proposing a peace treaty. Send signal for the Decepticon fleet. I will be in contact with you later._

-----------------------

It had been a week since Starscream's arrival at the new Autobot base. Or… base-to-be anyway. And things had been going smoothly. Or… as smooth as they could be going. So nothing was perfect.

Optimus had been speaking with the human government at length somewhat frequently regarding Decepticon activity and Earth's safety. Bumblebee visited as much as possible, and Ironhide worked on accepting Starscream into 'the family'. And generally speaking, he seemed to fit in fine with the odd collection of personalities within the base. None the less, eventually both Starscream and Ironhide were admitted to the medical bay.

---

"Ow... oww... oww... Agh!"

"Support your own weight damnit! Fragging whiner..." There was a soft whine and radio clips of apologies, "No no... You're not in trouble Bee."

"If I didn't need your help to walk, I wouldn't be touching you! So hurry it up! And it IS your fault!"

"I thought I told you to shut up!" There was a loud scraping sound from a foot half tripping along the floor, "Watch it! You aren't the only one hurt!"

Ratchet had been having a rather peaceful day, taking a break from inventorying everything and finishing the whole medical bay overall. He'd even taken his recharge longer than usual, which was highly uncommon. The day had continued with a casual reading on the many life forms on the planet he was residing on; Earth. It was very intiresting to see all of the varieties that a non-metalic organisim (a biological one) could evolve into. And not even that, all the theories and beliefs that heralded great followings called 'religions' were abound. Ratchet had begun reading various mythologies threaded together relating to a country called 'India' when voices and heavy footsteps became audible outside his medical bay door. Everyone knew (and would usually abide by such) that if you weren't injured, you didn't need to be in Ratchet's medical bay. There were the occasional acceptions, who would be booted out regardless of whatever new damage they would recieve while inside, and have to come back later. All too soon, the door was opened, an image of Starscream with his arm around Ironhide's shoulders hobbling in, followed by Bumblebee, who closed the door behind them, remaining around the two almost a bit nervously. They'd looked like they were in from the battlefield.

"Hey Ratchet." Ironhide waved at the medic, grumbling his greeting a bit as his partially severed arm lifted to offer a wave. Ratchet just raised a mechanical eyebrow.

"... Mind telling me what happened?" One of Starscream's optics had blacked out, both Transformers were limping, and there was a large tear at Starscream's shoulder (stopping him from lifting his arm), and most of the mechanical ligaments in Ironhide's elbow had been severed. Bumblebee was hovering in the background a bit, but moved forward to help Ironhide to one of the newly created medical tables. Starscream had started limping toward another table on his own, refusing help when Bumblebee turned to offer it. The armory expert was the one to speak up first,

"Genius here decided to upgrade the shooting range." There was a loud creaking and screeching sound as Starscream seated himself on the medical table, ragged edges of metal grinding against one another.

"Nothing would have happened if _HE_ hadn't decided to turn it on! It was hardly finished!" Starscream pointed his unwounded arm at Bumblebee, who wilted a little. Ironhide growled.

"Don't blame it on Bumblebee! You should have said you were doing upgrades! That place was a slagging _death _trap!" Ratchet had started to get tools out, going to ask missing information after they finished arguing. If he didn't get fed up with it first.

"Even if I _HAD_ told you about the upgrades, _he _would have turned the range on anyway! Your softness for that youngling clouds your judgement!" Ironhide's plasma cannons tried to engange, but failed with a saddening broken noise that signaled power being lost. The slightly aggitated mechanic laid a hand on Ironhide's raised arm and lowered it without much resistance in a buiseness-like fashion.

"You shut up! If you hadn't made the range more complicated, we wouldn't be in this mess!" Ratchet was pulling at Ironhide's arm, a forceful tug pulling his body back so he could start the general reattatchments of the arm. More delicate procedures could be done after that, and Ironhide would also heal himself. Luckily, it seemed like both needed minimal energon transfusions.

"You are neglecting the fact that your subordinate's irresponsibility almost got us _dismembered_!" The main hydrolics had been welded back together to make sure no more damage could be done until Ratchet could concentrate on the wound with more detail. He moved to Starscream's shoulder to stop the energon leak and seal it completely.

"He was just curious!" Ratchet began working on connecting the shoulder hydrolics back, earning a wince and having Starscream jerk his shoulder away as he continued to argue, Ratchet pulled his shoulder back to continue working.

"He turned the range on while we were WORKING on it!" It was getting harder to concentrate.

"You never said if-"

"QUIET! BOTH OF YOU!" Ratchet slammed his fist down on the medical table, denting it and instantly silencing the room. Two and a half sets of optics blinked at him in a little surprise(and perhaps some fear). There was a few moments of silence in which Ratchet glared at the previously arguing transformers before speaking, "... This is no one's fault entirely. Both Starscream and Bumblebee are responsible. Now learn from your mistakes and shut up." He returned to connecting hydrolics and sealing together the plate of metal that had been cut into, allowing what he said to sink in. For a while there, it was quiet, all eyes adverted and or downcast, with the acception of Ratchet's. Ironhide lifted his optics to look at the medic, allowing them to travel to Starscream whose single optic was staring fixedly at the floor as he skulked. Finally he looked to Bumblebee, who was looking very akward between them and the door, feeling guilty.

"... Kid, go clean up the range. We'll meet you later," Bumblebee looked up at the older Autobot, still looking saddened but gaining a glimmer of hope at the chance to redeem himself. Starscream had glanced up at them, watching as the yellow Autobot nodded and gave Ironhide an animated wave before turning to walk to the door, using the panel to open it.

Silence blanketed the room again, perferated by the clinks and welding sounds of Ratchet's work. After a while, Starscream absently lifted his unwounded arm to touch the disabled optic, fingering broken circuits to see if he could figure out what was wrong with it exactly. Ratchet had been able to get the jump on him and work on his shoulder without complaint, but he was going to double check EVERYTHING to make sure he didn't do anything unauthorized, or incorrect. Ironhide had glanced up at Starscream after a while, watching the Decepticon feel for the damage to his optic. If anything... he would still try to cooperate; for Optimus,

"... Sorry about your eye." Starscream's remaining optic looked up at him, blinking, apparently eyeing Ironhide to validate his sincerity, and if he'd accept the other's concern even if it was true. Ironhide accepted the silence as a 'mission failed'.

"... If you hadn't pulled me, it would have been my head," Ironhide's head shot up, blinking at Starscream who had his sights specifically adverted to the ground. He couldn't believe it... "and... I should have told you about the upgrades." Oddly enough, Ironhide was... pleased. Maybe Optimus's wish for peace wasn't so far from actual possibility. Despite the fact Starscream's voice was clearly a bit strained while admitting such facts, and he refused to make eye contact.

-----------------

It was about that time again; lunch time. Ratchet had paused his repairs, perpously having left their legs for last to keep them from moving. Starscream's eye had been repaired, and when the medic had left, he'd immediatly gone to inspecting repairs, using the reflection in the table to check his eye. Ironhide had been trying to keep himself occupied while Ratchet was getting them their energon, but eventually his eyes landed on watching Starscream since he was the only thing in the room doing something intiresting. He was finding the Decepticon's checking annoying.

"... Ratchet has been doing this for a long time, and he's good at his job." There was nothing else to do.

"Hnh," Starscream snorted slightly, "If I didn't check after every repair, I wouldn't be here today." He tilted his head as he looked into the table, finding nothing wrong with his optic, and that the vision was clear. So he had done a good job... that was a relief.

"You aren't around Decepticons anymore." Starscream lifted his head to look at Ironhide with a 'yeah, right' look.

"No, I'm around the enemy. I feel _so_ much better." He scoffed and looked back down to the table to double check functionability. Now Ironhide was feeling fustrated since a while ago it seemed that maybe Starscream was starting to accept them as friends.

"What ever happened to trusting us?"

"Perhaps you forgot I'm here against my will. My coming here wasn't exactly 'pleasant'." Now Ironhide was getting just a little pissed off.

"You're here to try making a peace treaty work."

"As if I had much choice."

"Then what was that earlier?" Starscream frowned and looked up at him.

"... What was what?"

"Saying that you were wrong. And thanking me." Geeze, what was his deal?

"... because it was the truth." He leaned over to pick up one of the tools Ratchet had left on the table, starting to work on his battered legs. This left Ironhide looking at Starscream like he was presented with a rubix cube. Why the hell was he so complicated? Megatron wasn't this complicated. Luckily, the door opened to present Ratchet with cups of energon to stop Ironhide from fustrating himself more. He immediatly frowned upon Starscream, who ignored him as Ratchet walked to the tables and put the tray down. When he took the tool away from Starscream, the Decepticon glared at him and looked away. Ironhide settled for picking up a cup of energon and moving away from Starscream to ignore him.

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Mehh...

For inquiring minds: Yes, I plan on finishing this as a story all together (OMGNOWAI). Yeswai. I already know what I want for an ending. But we need more bonding time (because it is fun, that's why. Builds… suspense? Character? Trust? A relationship? Something like that…), and I need people to talk to me about the arrival of other Autobots and Decepticons. Talk to me about their personalities. Wikipedia only carries me so far-!


	8. Connecting Socially

Chapter 8

Am I the only one who yells out 'Ironhide!' and 'Optimus Prime!' when I see their corresponding model of car drive by?

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After Optimus had been informed of the 'mis-hap' that wound both Ironhide and Starscream in med. bay (first he'd paused to sigh), he'd ventured a talk with Ratchet to hear the extent of the damage. Afterwards, he put in his two cents about their mistakes before telling Starscream to record and report all of the updates he had made to the shooting range, and all those planned on making for further notice. In the end, both Transformers were held in the medical bay to finish their recovery. While this was fine for the most part with Starscream, Ironhide was bored out of his mind, and getting increasingly aggitated. Again; the only person doing anything remotely intiresting (within easy range) was Starscream. Plus it wasn't a bad idea to know all of the updates made and to-be made in the shooting range. So instead of asking, Ironhide got up and walked as quietly as a giant robot could to look over Starscream's shoulder, who was absorbed in his work.

For a while he didn't seem to notice, so Ironhide read over the report panel Starscream had, a line connected to his mainframe to download all of the information in great detail. He couldn't exactly understand all of the complex wiring and mechanics of an automated, moving target system, but he was able to understand enough to identify what it was. And it was a good idea.

"..."

"... Can I help you?" Starscream asked in a low annoyed growl, optics turning to glare at Ironhide's close proximity. Said Autobot was a little surprised at being pulled from his reading, finding the information feed had paused on the hand held pannel. He blinked at Starscream.

"... Not really. Just reading." His optics flicked back to the report, waiting for more information. Ironhide was somewhat surprised and mostly dissapointed when Starscream stood up and moved away from him, the report going out of easy reading range with him.

"I can see that. Do not stand so close to me." He took a seat on the table one over to continue his report. Ironhide scowled, finding two tables between him and his only source of ammusement now. So he walked around them to go behind Starscream and lean over to see the report again. Starscream bristled, disconnecting the line and lowering the report pannel as he stood, turning around and glaring.

"Stop that." Such a statement caused Ironhide to frown. What was he making such a big deal about anyway?

"Stop what?" Starscream's glare hardened, crossing his arms.

"Stop looking over my shoulder." Ironhide just scoffed, not believing that such a thing could cause the other to act so oddly.

"What, you have a 'personal space' bubble I'm popping over and over again or something?" Ironhide rolled his optics, giving Starscream a slight shove against his shoulder to further underline his sarcasm. When all he recieved as a glare that wished death, he did a slight double take, blinking, "... Seriously?" Starscream grumbled and moved tables again.

"I also have a problem with you standing behind me. It's unnerving." He returned to his report, but paused after a moment, sights slowly dragging upwards to Ironhide, already knowing the certain doom that grin spelled. It seemed to say 'I've found a new game'... Starscream let out an audible growl as the Autobot walked around the table to approach him, "Don't you dare." He was in no mood for games. Ever.

Ironhide test poked him after a moment, slightly amused grin in place. Starscream slapped his hand away, holding up a finger to keep the offender at bay,

"Don't touch me." Ironhide's head tilted to the side a little, seemingly calculating wether or not he should do such a thing again. He did. And this time Starscream decked him with surprising speed, knocking him back into the other table with a loud crash. Ratchet had been keeping an optic on the two since Ironhide got up, and had been hoping that nothing like this would arise. Though that seemed impossible between them. Ironhide let out a disgruntled huff as he regained his balance, one hand resting back on the table behind him as he gave Starscream a bewildered glare.

"What was that for?!"

"I told you not to touch me." Starscream snipped, letting out an annoyed 'tch' before walking around the tables again to take a seat. Ironhide growled and proceeded to follow him and interrogate the Decepticon until he found out what his deal was. Ratchet's voice stopped him though, the medic getting up and walking over to the two.

"Ironhide, do not make me relocate you." The weapons savvy Autobot stopped, eyes still on Starscream who was giving him a cold look. Ironhide broke the eye contact and walked another table over to keep two tables between him and Starscream.

"What's your problem anyway?" He took a seat on the table, sulking as he wracked his brain again to try and figure out what he'd done wrong to make him react like that.

"Is it too much to ask for you to leave me alone?" The Decepticon grumbled, lifting his report pad up and reviewing it.

"Geeze, lighten up."

"Frag you." Starscream snapped in an effortless rebuttle, reconnecting the line to his mainframe to continue his report, more than a little miffed. Ratchet was considering making a high reccomendation that Optimus Prime find someone else to watch Starscream soon since he and Ironhide didn't get along very well. Ironhide was about to get off the table and say something again before Ratchet pushed the pad he had been reading into his chest and forcefully sat him back down, giving him a critical look.

"Read. Or recharge." Ironhide grumbled, casting a last look at Starscream before laying back fully on the table and turning on the pad to search. Ratchet was hoping that he'd have peace for the rest of the day now.

--------------------------------

"I'm telling you Optimus, I don't know how long I can put up with that slagging Decepticon. I can't figure him, and he's not helping." Ironhide was standing in the main area, following the Autobot leader around some as Optimus Prime monitored general communications and police alerts for signs of Barricade and possibly Scorpinok. The humans still needed to launch more satelites to monitor incoming objects from space. Since Starscream destroyed a good ammount of them.

"Ironhide, we've been over this." Optimus was moving through information on the main screen, stepping back to look up at it. Ironhide grumbled.

"Can't you get someone else to watch him?" Optimus glanced back at him, before looking up at the screen for a moment and then walking to another terminal in the room.

"No Ironhide. We can't spare anyone else." Ironhide scowled, walking after him a little.

"Why not?" He recieved another glance.

"Ratchet is too busy to watch him. And I do not believe Bumblebee is capable of watching Starscream. I am busy negotiating with the human government." Ironhide grumbled, looking away.

"Geeze... I really am the only one who is qualified to watch him..." Optimus walked to another terminal, checking the screen.

"Perhaps when other Autobots arrive, you may take turns watching him. Where is he right now anyway?"

"I asked Ratchet to watch him for a while. He's still recharging."

"... Right." There was silence for a while, before Ironhide looked up again. Maybe, hopefully Optimus could shed some light on an issue.

"... How do you put up with him? Starscream I mean." There was a while before Optimus responded.

"Decepticons are untrustworthy by nature. You must learn to ignore his provokes."

"... All I did was poke him..." Optimus arched an eye brow, turning to look back at Ironhide. This question was obviously following an event he was not present for.

"Did he ask you not to?" Now Ironhide seemed to be getting fustrated.

"... well... yeah... But he didn't have to punch me for it."

"Try to put yourself in Starscream's position." Optimus ventured a bit absently.

"There's no way I'd be working with Decepticons. I'd die first." Ironhide growled, snorting and looking away. Optimus sighed; obviously that analogy wouldn't work...

"Never mind... But the main point is he is our only connection with the Decepticons. And possibly locating Barricade. Starscream is no good to us dead." Well that made sense atleast. Didn't change the fact that Ironhide still didn't like it.

"Then lets get him to talk with his good friend Barricade." Ironhide decided. He still had the greater advantage over the jet afterall.

"Ironhide, do not rush anything if you want to get along with Starscream better."

"Yeah yeah, I'll bring the little punk in here." Optimus watched his long time friend walk toward the door in order to drag a Decepticon he was already on bad terms with into the communications room.

------------------------

"You must understand Ironhide still has mixed feelings about you and your situation."

"Doesn't give a reason for his block-headed-ness." Starscream wasn't too sure about how Ratchet had coaxed him into a phsycological session (a 'shrink' in human terms. Or something like that.), but he was fairly sure it was to make sure that he and Ironhide wouldn't wreck up his medical lab anymore.

"He isn't exactly the most understanding Transformer. 'Shoot first, ask questions later' sort of a ideal."

"Obviously." Their unschedualed session was interrupted as the door opened with a slight 'woosh', yeilding the topic of conversation.

"Starscream." Oh great. The Decepticon rolled his optics and got off the table, turning to look at Ironhide fully.

"What do you want?" Ratchet watched his progress with Starscream deteriorate before his very eyes. Or did it? Ironhide seemed to pause, swaying a bit before walking forward, stalling for something.

"… Sorry." Starscream arched an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation, "… For… poking you when you said not to." The Decepticon shifted his weight back and crossed his arms at this point, still looking unimpressed. Ironhide seemed to be holding his breath.

"… Okay…" Oh thank god. So he forgave him. Ironhide reached out and grabbed his upper arm and promptly dragged him to the door.

"Alright, c'mon."

"Hey-!" Starscream stumbled a little, looking bewildered as he was dragged out of medical bay with his report panel still in hand. The both of them left in a rush and the medical bay was silent again. There was a few moments before Ratchet sighed and got up to continue his work on organizing the stock in the medical bay. Ironhide was still as tactless as a rock when it came to understanding others.

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I has a potatoe.

... no touchie.

Ironhide:D Why don't you ever open up about how you feel?  
Starscream: T.T … you're kidding, right? –such a thing means certain death in Decepticon society-


	9. Communication

Chapter 9

My school starts soon... Bleh.

I need a co-author

Warningz: Short chapter ahead. I didn't have much time to write and submit it.

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"Hey! Are you even listening to me?!" Starscream wasn't exactly fighting being pulled down the hallway by Ironhide, but he was still complaining about it. Ironhide seemed to be ignoring him for the most part.

"We're going to communications room." The Decepticon was baffled, some jumbled information being fed into the report as he was dragged.

"What for?! I have a report to finish!"

"You can finish it later. You're going to connect us with Barricade." At this point, Starscream began to fight back, trying to pull away from him.

"What?! You're malfunctioning, let me go!" Ironhide kept a solid grip on his lower arm as he opened the door to the main communications room. "There is no way that Barricade is going to talk to you!"

"We'll see. Just connect us." Optimus Prime turned slightly, shutting off signal monitoring in order to open the panel for outside communication. Starscream was pulled (grumbling) infront of the large terminal, glancing at Optimus before pushing the unfinished report at him. It was recieved, and he looked it over, while Ironhide began setting up to open a communications relay for Starscream. All they needed was the signal code.

"... What does 'adklaweofkjds' mean?" Optimus asked slowly, looking up from the report. Starscream just blinked, looking at him like he was crazy before grabbing the report and looking at it. He growled and turned around, smacking Ironhide in the back of the head.

"Ow! Why you-!"

"I have to fix this too because of you!" Starscream thrust the report panel at him in emphasis before pulling it back and reconnecting the line in order to delete the jiberish. Since the action was valid, Ironhide just glared and grumbled, easily finishing setting up a communications relay. Now he just had to wait for Starscream. ... His patience wore thin rather quickly.

"Will you hurry it up?" The Decepticon shot him a death glare, gears grinding in annoyance.

"One thing at a time! There's no rush to contact Barricade." He shot back, returning to his report. Ironhide huffed and rolled his optics, crossing his arms and waiting. It seemed to take forever and Ironhide had begun to let his mind wander before Starscream was finished, handing the report to Optimus who looked it over briefly and nodded.

"I'll read it in depth later." Starscream grumbled something about stupid impatient Autobots as he turned to the terminal, setting the communcation signal. He stood back some as it finished.

"Barricade, this is Starscream." There was a slight crackle, signaling that the other was about to respond.

"Starscream? What is your current situation." It was more of a basic demand than a question. Starscream crossed his arms and shifted his weight back a little.

"In the Autobot base, with Ironhide and Optimus Prime next to me." His voice had lost the brief professional tone, settling for almost bored and expecting complaint. Which came.

"You're working with _Autobots_?" He hissed.

"Don't be rediculous. I was captured, remember?"

"I recieved your distress signal two weeks ago. Why are you letting the Autobots learn my communications signal?"

"I didn't have much choice." Barricade scoffed.

"You're a disgrace to the Decepticon name!" Starscream bristled.

"Don't you patronize me, Barricade. You aren't my superior."

"The Decepticons are lost without Megatron." He growled, seeming to hint atleast SOMETHING that meant something to Starscream. He growled in annoyance.

"Try and withold your self-doubt," He replied sarcastically, "Have you been able to reach Scorpinok?"

"Why would you care?" Starscream growled again, slamming his hands on the panel where there weren't any buttons.

"Answer me!"

"Fine. He's moved from the middle east to Africa, and is staying low. Is there a reason I've just informed the Autobots where a fellow Decepticon is?"

"Shut up. You didn't give precise coordinates, so they don't know where he is."

"You're helping them so you don't get decomissioned, aren't you?" Barricade hissed.

"Can it! They are proposing a peace treaty." Obviously they were starting to get a bit off topic.

"Coward!"

"Slaggart!" Optimus finally stepped forward.

"That is _enough._" They both quieted, Starscream crossing his arms and turning around.

"I'm done here. Talk to him if you want, he's not going to tell you anything useful." Obviously things were a bit tense between the two. Even though what Starscream said was probably true, it wouldn't hurt to try.

"Barricade. I would like to know if you would accept a peace treaty." There was a harsh laugh.

"Don't be stupid, Prime! The only reason Starscream is accepting it for now is to save his own skin." The fact the other was being so rude was pissing off Ironhide to no end, particularly because he couldn't shoot the offender. Optimus seemed to be keeping a steady head though.

"Because you have no support and are stranded on this planet, I am giving you an oportunity. Is there anything you would like to help us with?" There was a bit of a pause.

"... There is an energon drone terrorizing 'France'." There was a bit of an odd silence.

"... I thought the human military delt with those created by the All Spark."

"It's in the shape of a 'Mountain Dew' soda machine."

"Are you in France?"

"Maybe."

"..."

"..." There was a bit of a long, akward silence as the off-topic conversation ended.

"... I'm closing the communication relay. Do _not_ try to contact me again." There was a short crackle before the communications shut off. Barricade had successfully told them absolutely nothing useful, and had even gotten them distracted and off topic. Optimus sighed, but brought up communications to inform the government about the energon drone, and to check news reports in France.

-------------------------- rofl random

"I told you it was futile. Barricade wouldn't tell you anything." Starscream grumbled, working on the wiring in the shooting range again. Bumblebee had cleared away all the scrap pieces of metal. Ironhide had resumed bolting the reinforced metal sheeting to the walls.

"Yeah yeah..." He grumbled, putting up a few more sheets before pausing, "... You really don't get along well with anyone, do you?" Starscream just scoffed.

"I don't need to 'get along' with anyone. They're all subordinates to me now." Now that Megatron was dead. Subordinates and equals.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am considering bringing in Mirage, Sideswipe, and/or Sunstreaker. I need reviews on your opinions, and on their personalities.

Also considering bringing in Skywarp. And... some other... Decepticons...

No, I don't know any of these characters. At all. X.x;


	10. That one guy everyone hates

Chapter 10

Two Points:

My two cents on the matter of Starscream's loyalties;

I want to see Starscream totally turn over a new leaf and join the Autobots. Really. After seeing how Megatron would always rag on Starscream in Armada, I rilly do. Will that happen in the story? Maybe.

An Ironhide/Starscream relationship involving Slash;

NOT unless they were human. No robot slashing for me, thank you. I can't write Slash anyway. O.o; Which is odd, since I seem to role play it just fine.

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Things had been... Well, not hectic. But not calm either. Perhaps that eerie kind of calm where you are patrolling the battlefield with a rumor of an enemy ambush floating about. If said ambush were to be defined as some kind of yell/weapons fire from either Starscream or Ironhide that signaled something ELSE had gone horribly wrong. Not that things went wrong all the time, but Optimus Prime felt like he was expecting something to go wrong any nanosecond now.

"Do not RUN with those lights, Autobot! This _**ancient**_ technology is easily breakable." Starscream's irritated voice floated down the hall, Optimus's audio receptors (listening stuffs) had picked it up and locked onto it. Perhaps it was just some slightly expectant paranoia that had begun to set in...

"Oh relax Starscream, Bumblebee has been stuck in his car form for weeks. The kid gets stir crazy." Ironhide chuckled, obviously amused, probably by Bumblebee's usual enthusiasm.

"That is no excuse."

Busy. That had been the word for it. Things around here had be _busy._

"Watch it!"

"Bumblebee!"

CRASH! SHATTER! There was the faint audible tinkle of fragile glass. Optimus paused his scans of news reports the world over to sigh. They were closer to the door now, so he could hear Starscream growl irritably.

"What did I tell you?" There was a soft whine of audio clips from Bumblebee in apology.

"Y'all right Bee?" Another audio clip let him know he was fine. Starscream was grumbling about the broken light bulbs. It was the sound of a human's voice that made Optimus turn around however.

"Is your base of operations always this... unprofessional?" There were the sounds of Bumblebee getting up and the rest of them getting organized to proceed into the room Optimus was in. The door swooshed open via Starscream, with Ironhide providing the usual (slightly) rough welcome.

"Hey, without some fun, we'd all turn into stiffs." He didn't add the 'like you' bit he had on his processor. Starscream glanced back at them before proceeding into the room with the new lights for the less-traveled areas of the base that needed working on.

"Of course, if we _cut_ the fun down, we wouldn't be ordering new lights." This time it was Bumblebee who quipped in a response to Starscream's usual grumbling comments. It said something about 'lightening up', which in turn made Ironhide chuckle at the cheap (none the less _bad_) pun. The Decepticon let an evicted growl escape before walking toward another doorway to get further into the base, areas that needed new lights. Ironhide quieted his chuckling, glancing at Bumblebee.

"Kid, go clean up." He nodded down the hall, recieving another animated salute from Bumblebee before he ran off to get some sort of oversized cleaning tool, probably a broom and dustpan. All of that had been courtesy of Optimus, who had thought ahead. Ironhide then glanced down at the human who was taking care to keep a good ammount of distance from all of them since Bumblebee's slight clumsy-ness had already been demonstrated. "Oh yeah; Optimus, this is Colonel Maybourne of the U.S. Military. He's here about Barricade."

Optimus lowered himself down to kneel infront of the man, "Greetings, Colonel Maybourne. Welcome to the Earth Autobot Base." The man tipped his uniform hat slightly and nodded, looking oddly high-strung and preoccupied as he looked around.

"I heard you have the means of contacting one of the rogue robots." He said, coughing a bit to buck up his voice. Optimus was starting to sense an air about the man like that of the Section 7 man that had taken Sam and Mikaela. He was hoping he was wrong.

"We do, but he refuses to give us any information." Ironhide commented before walking after Starscream, needing to keep the Decepticon in his sights. Optimus stood back up, walking to the large Transformer sized computer terminal. There were several human sized ones about the whole base as well.

"Barricade has given specific instruction that he does not wish to be contacted again. We still wish for an alliance between us, so cornering him seems unwise." This seemed to aggitate Maybourne. He was fidgeting a little, seeming agitated.

"Maybe this isn't quite the concern for you since all of your operatives are relatively _safe _within your base, but this... _thing_ is very dangerous to all of _us_ out there." He waved an arm in emphasis. Optimus frowned.

"His name is 'Barricade'. I do not know of a way to find and bring him in without involving humans. Most likely, he will resort to dangerous measures to escape." Maybourne seemed to be thinking about something else, still fidgeting and then walking toward the human sized terminal.

"We know you have been monitoring news reports and keeping an eye out, like we have. And more equipped factions have been dispatched to France to deal with the rogue robot." He'd begun to access the terminal.

"It's an 'energon drone'," Optimus corrected, "and don't you have to discuss your entering foreign territory with the French Government? If my understanding of your cultures is correct, your juresdiction will not cover-"

"Do not _worry_ about it, we will sort it out and take care of it. However, I wish to direct your attention to a news report in Florida." The Autobot leader frowned, but walked to his own terminal to pull up a search for recent news reports in Florida. Maybourne appeared to be busy himself on the terminal.

"Search for an unsolved murder in Miami." He searched. Normally he could access the internet wirelessly, but to look at things in greater detail, it was easier to pull the information up on a screen. Starscream had made all of their computers impervious to any sort of Earthly computer virus, trojan, or spyware. He'd grumbled the whole time about the primitive equipment he had to work with, but that wasn't anything unusual.

"... 'Unidentified, crushed body found in dead-end alley. Speculators believe it to have been crushed by a large foot. Blood and flesh has been found scraped off by said foot on the surrounding concrete'." Optimus lapsed into silence, frowning at the picture-less article. The local police department should have crime scene photos, but it already sounded like this could have been done by Barricade. It had taken minutes for him to access the Miami police database, searching for photos of the crushed body. He'd just opened the file containing open cases, and then decided that it would be faster to search off of the computer, his own processor quickly going through the information in the police database. A few moments later, he pulled away and frowned, "... It would seem that is a footprint from Barricade." So he had already killed someone...

There was a sudden crackle of a communications relay coming online, making Optimus look around in confusion. Maybourne seemed ontop of things though.

"Hello? Is this the robot terrorist known as 'Barricade'?" Oh yes, he had a way with words. Barricade's harsh mechanical voice answered.

"Who is this?" It held his usual angry, interrogating tone. Optimus turned a harsh optic on the human.

"What are you doing?" He asked. Barricade's irritated voice sounded again.

"Prime! I have not changed my position since you_ last_ contacted me." This was definetly not okay, not with Optimus.

"You were contacted without my authorization."

"This is Colonel Maybourne of the U.S. Military, I am_ ordering_ you to reveal your location, and give yourself up." Barricade's response was less than favorable, and carried a very angry and insulted undertone.

"You must be malfunctioning to believe I would even _think_ to negotiate with a _human_ when I turned down a fellow Decepticon" He hissed.

"We don't _negotiate_ with terrorists, and we don't tolerate them, unlike your friends here." There was an angry rumble from the other side of the communications.

"Do not even go so far as to _presume_ I am anywhere close to friends with any _Autobot_. I would gladly rip the spark out of Prime with my own two hands." Colonel Maybourne was about to continue his severely unauthorized conversation with someone he was not even remotely ready to deal with (no matter what he thought) when the Autobot leader had decided he'd had enough. Optimus stomped a foot in order to silence him, sending a slight tremour through the floor. He was quite angry.

"Barricade, I appologize for harboring this incident." His voice was tense and the communications relay was cut quickly, remembering that he was still dealing with a representative of a government they were in alliance with. "There is no excuse for not informing me of your attempt to contact Barricade." Maybourne seemed to bristle and become aggressive at being caught, feeling deffensive all the more since he was caught by a giant, transforming robot.

"He is a larger concern to the safety of the people of this _nation _than whatever you are trying to accomplish by leaving him out there." Optimus actually scowled at him.

"You avoided my wishes in my base of command. Please leave."

"You can't just decide what you can and can't tell us!"

"You never asked. I will have _Starscream_ escort you out if you do not leave now." At this, Maybourne grumbled, but definetly did not want to be escorted out and removed himself. Optimus sighed heavily when the man left, feeling irritated and slightly betrayed when his trust of the humans was thrown back in this fashion. But they needed time to evolve, and lots of it. He would talk with that man's superiors to find out the full extent of this prejudice and feelings toward Cybertronians.

------------------------------------------------ omfg Stargate ripoff

At the surprisingly less tense side of the base, Ironhide and Starscream were installing and replacing lights. Bumblebee had kind of crept into the room with more torches, letting out a few sound clips to inform the two that Optimus was in a bad mood. Such a thing seemed uncharacteristic, so Ironhide asked why. The response was that it was the human's fault, since he wasn't exactly sure how to get into detail. Starscream however had let out an unsurprised 'hmph'.

"What? You sayin' you were expecting this?" Ironhide growled, feeling deffensive to know that humans had once again inflicted some sort of damage to them. Optimus didn't get angry easily after all.

"You shouldn't trust such inferior life forms. If they aren't stupid enough to trust you entirely, they will only cause trouble in your progress." He said it in a way that suggested he lived by such an ideal.

Now, Ironhide had decided his role as babysitter over Starscream had moved to re-educator a while ago. Of course, Starscream didn't know this, and constant pestering by Ironhide was only annoying him.

"If you don't try to trust someone, you may miss out on oportunities."

"And if you do misplace your trust, you can be blown into oblivion." Starscream countered in his usual quick fashion, walking to another light fixture and engaging his thrusters to lift himself up to the lights in order to replace them. Unfortunately, Ironhide couldn't find any reasonable counter, so let this one go. They worked on in silence, Starscream replacing lights, and Ironhide putting together new light fixtures. After a while, the room was finished, lights fully functional. So they went to the next room. Aaand the next room... s...

------------------------------------------------ In France...

There was a great rumor of a monster, or alien, or some kind of giant robot (yeah, right) lurking around France. There had been no casualties, and victums were found soaked in Mountain Dew. With crushed cans of the stuff around them (along with blunt impacts against usually the person's skull) most have deduced that a soda can weilding maniac was loose. This was blamed on the Americans for inventing the stuff. So it would seem like poetic justice that two American tourists were walking down an ominously empty alley.

"Hey, I didn't know the French had Mountain Dew soda machines!" Our savvy, camera wearing American had pointed out with excitement, having been missing the taste of home a little. His wife had followed after him as he began to search his pockets for change in order to get some of the soda.

"Odd. For all the French we've met so far, I thought they hated Americans..." She mumbled, looking at the machine, which seemed to take American money. Made sense. She watched as her husband produced a dollar in quarters and inserted them into the machine. It registered the ammount given. But nothing happened when he pressed one of the many buttons that all yeilded Mountain Dew. After a moment he pressed it again. Then he kicked it.

"What the heck is wrong with this thing?!" His wife just sighed.

"Probably too good to be true. The French made it to torture American Tourists..." She mumbled. There was suddenly a gargled cranking sound from the machine, making them step back uneasily. Their unease was verified when the Soda Machine suddenly transformed, folding into a large humanoid body. It pointed its arm at them and fired cans of Mountain Dew at them. Their screams filled the alley as they attempted to flee, but were taken down.

As for the U.S. Military, they had been stopped by the French police and government in general, and were having a heated argument. Since one was yelling in English about national security (if they could capture the robot, they could still research it with further help from the Autobots), and the other was yelling in French (or a heavy french accent, they couldn't tell) about stupid Americans and boarder crossing.

(For those of you who love the Mountain Dew bot, please look for a story called 'The Little Soda Machine That Could')

----------------------------------------------- Far far away...

"Skywarp! I am aware that nothing has been happening lately, but that is no reason for you to slack off! Those damn twins are still around here somewhere..." Thundercracker had been looking for his wingmate for the past half hour when he wasn't found at his post. He found him in a crator, chucking rocks out of the moon's gravity field.

"Oh please, we haven't seen them in days and we never get anywhere when we do." Skywarp frowned when a rock fell short, drifting slightly before falling back to the moon somewhere else.

"That is not the point."

It was at this point that they both recieved a transmission from their commanding officer. It took a while for messages to cross space afterall.

_Skywarp, Thundercracker; Megatron has been destroyed. The All Spark is lost. I want both of you to come to this Spark forsaken rock immediatly. The only decepticons remaining are myself, Barricade, and Scorpinok. I'm going to need backup. Prime is here, along with three other Autobots._

The transmission ended.

"... Looks like we'd better get moving then." Thundercracker looked out into the dark space, which looked about the same no matter where you looked. Skywarp stood and dusted himself off slightly, feeling relieved that he actually had something to do now. And things tended to be boring without Starscream, even if they were charged with hunting down the Lamborgini twins, which had practically been made into a game by said twins. They had a long flight ahead of them...

As for Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, they had recieved the broadcasted message from Optimus Prime on the main Autobot frequency a few days ago, and had left since messing with the two Seekers was getting old.

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Donut recieved!

New arrivals in progress.

Anyone else watch Burn Notice?


	11. Boredom Kills

Chapter 11

I feel that the last chapter was... not so good.

Made with paper clips and rubber bands!!

(Don't worry, it's not as bad as you think.)

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Bumblebee had returned again to Sam and Mikaela, Starscream was in recharge under Ratchet's watch, and Ironhide was... bored. For some reason, he had been feeling restless, and had even had a reccomendation from Ratchet to take some easy time, and an assuance from the medic that he didn't mind watching a recharging bot (he actually prefered it to one that was awake). So without a Decepticon to watch, Ironhide had gravitated to the shooting range. And he had to hand it to Starscream... it worked really well. The armory chief found himself idly thinking that Starscream's pre-war skills wouldn't be such a bad thing to have around (if only they lost the anti-social and touchy attitude, then they'd be set). He'd lost track of time, since his mechanics would not tire like a human's muscles would, and he did enjoy using his weaponry when he had been denied for so long. The door opened.

"Ironhide, I'm going to take a recharge." Ratchet had escorted Starscream to the shooting range, since Optimus had clearly stated the Decepticon was not to be left to his own devices. Starscream gave him one wave in goodbye, which looked more like he was shooing him away and was glad to be rid of him. In truth, Ratchet was the one Autobot he could stand the most in this whole base. He didn't bug him, and Ratchet kept everything on buisness terms. The door made a soft 'whoosh' as it shut (like they all did) and it was back to the usual company, with Ironhide in less of a gruff mood. Starscream walked to the terminal to check over the shooting range's operations.

"... I'm surprised the shooting range hasn't turned against you yet." The Decepticon grumbled, almost as if he were dissapointed. Of course, Ironhide took pride in that, letting out a small 'hmh' with a bit of a smirk. He polished off a few more targets before responding.

"Electronics may not be my strong point, but I'm not a complete disaster with them." Ironhide walked back over to the terminal, scanning all of the options on the screen carefully, "..." After a while he looked up at Starscream, annoyed. Starscream looked up from a report panel after a moment.

"... What?"

"Awright; how do you work this stupid thing? I'm kind of afraid ta' mess with it." With what had happened last time and all. Starscream heaved an annoyed grumbling sigh of impatience that only ever stemmed from someone being asked to explain something they knew so well it seemed like standard common sense. He disconnected the line to the report and got off of the wall he was leaning on to walk over to the terminal in order to get an unwanted tutorial over with.

"Do you want it standard, manual, or automated?"

"... Will you have to work it if it's manual?"

"More or less."

"I'll take automated then." There were a few clicks on the keyboard and a new selection screen came up.

"Moving, skeet, or trap?"

"Is there a difference?"

"You can adjust the speed for the moving, the distance they appear in, and the target size. The other two are self explanitory."

(A/N: For those of you who don't know, trap and skeet refer to clay pigeons being flung by machine for the shooter. Skeet goes from left to right, trap comes from your position out away from you. Or is it the other way around...?)

"Show me the options for moving so I don't have to ask you again." More clacking of the keyboard and new options.

"As you can see, it's simple; speed and distance is adjustable. Or you can just select randomized." Starscream selected the speed option to show the speed range you could set the targets within. Ironhide seemed to be considering his options thoughtfully, before walking back to the firing cubicle.

"Surprise me." Starscream simply skipped back a menu and selected 'randomized' before walking back to his place on the the wall to continue his report, this time turning off his audio receptors.

Ironhide found the shooting range to be plenty to his liking for the first version; speeds and distances were randomized, and the room was pretty long. Circular red targets varying in size would spring up and ride along hidden railings accross the room and back and forth. This included along the walls and ceiling. While he let what he had developed as second nature take over, his mind absently thought over and noted small adjustments in his firing that needed to be changed, and whatelse Starscream could do. Eventually he thought of something, and decided to run it past the Decepticon. After a while of no response, he turned around and asked again. Starscream hadn't looked up from his report panel once, and seemed to be ignoring him.

Of course what he didn't know was that he had turned his audio receptors off in order to tune out the sounds of the shooting range while he planned out improvements that needed to be made around the base (he'd been here for two month and the list of things to do was still endless). Starscream finally looked up when Ironhide waved a hand inbetween his vision and the report panel, obviously saying something and looking annoyed. He turned his audio receptors back on, looking equally annoyed at the disturbance.

"What do you want?" He grumbled.

"Geeze, I'm asking your opinion on some kind of physical range. Like this one, but for grappeling." Ironhide was finding the words to describe his idea a bit hard. Starscream gave him an odd look, almost like he was crazy.

"... And who do you intend to grappel with? Me?" He took note of the idea anyway, feeling that had closed the issue and raising the report panel back up. It hadn't.

"No, I mean like back home, with energon drones or something." Starscream let his hand holding the panel drop from his face to give Ironhide a skeptical look.

"Oh really? And where will we get the energon drones? We're too concentrated on getting energon for ourselves, let alone to make training drones."

"... Well there is that one running around in... _France _was it?"

"I imagine your human friends want that one for research."

"Well if we negotiate with them, I'm sure we can get it."

"And when you break it, which you will, what then?"

"... Take it to Ratchet?"

"Oh yes, you'll really get on his good side that way." Starscream rolled his optics, "Before making any energon drones, we need to secure a way to steadily produce energon. We're still working on that."

"... Alright, fine, _you_ can grapple with me." Ironhide looked a bit smug in his decision, since he felt he would probably win. Startscream's jet judo said otherwise.

"And then we can both go to the medical bay together again. I think I'll pass." He raised the report panel again, trying to give the hint to Ironhide that he wasn't intirested in his idea at all. For the moment. Ironhide nudged his shoulder, earning a glare, "_What_ do you want?"

"... Are you saying you don't want to fight me because you don't prefer hand-to-hand combat, or because you're afraid I'll kick your ass?" Obviously he'd been going through the human interthing and looking up their language more in depth. Starscream's glare hardened.

"I'm too busy to play your games."

"Aw, c'mon, I won't use my guns." Ironhide had added a slight tinge of a soft whine to his voice. This made Starscream do a slight double take and stare at him like he'd changed color from black to yellow. After a moment he recovered from the odd personality lapse the Autobot seemed to be having.

"Absolutely not. And don't use that tone of voice." Ironhide scowled, but knew he could get away with it. He'd already started to get used to having the grumpy Decepticon around, and felt they were on SOME kind of friendly terms. He moved closer as Starscream looked back to the report panel, overshadowing him slightly. As predicted, the Decepticon bristled and looked up sharply, moving away from him in order to regain his personal space. So he moved in again. And Starscream moved. They continued this for about half a minute before Starscream was backing toward a different wall, looking at Ironhide almost like a human would look at another human that was advancing on them with a knife drawn. Except, his personal space was being threatened instead of himself, "Stop distracting me, Autobot." Ironhide had continued to advance on him.

"You can continue your report thing _later._ I want to do something atleast a little exciting every once and a while."

"You're being stupid and irrational. You already had your excitement when we were building the shooting range."

"Yeah, but I'm bored _now_." He'd finally managed to corner the Seeker commander against the wall.

"... And what will you do if I say 'no'?" Ironhide seemed thoughtful for a moment, before reaching forward and plucking the report from Starscream's hand, who had been holding it up almost like a shield.

"Then no report for you." Starscream couldn't believe how childish this had gotten, but his optics were on the report as Ironhide waved it around a little.

"It won't take long. I bet I can have you screamin' for mercy in two minutes." Ironhide challenged. Starscream just made a swipe for the report.

"... Don't have time for this. Give me that report." Ironhide pulled it out of reach, holding it out to his side and waving it tauntingly. Starscream stepped forward and reached for it, watching it drop out of his grasp and being switched behind Ironhide's back to the other side. The seeker glared bullets at Ironhide, who seemed to have found yet another game, and was grinning with amusement. Starscream growled and reached for the report again, getting it switched again to the other side of Ironhide. And he was unwilling to get so close as to touch the Autobot, so was keeping his distance.

"I can keep this up aaalll day." The report switched hands behind his back again, and again, and then finally stayed behind Ironhide's back, moving his body to block Starscream from getting around him (he'd be damed if he put his arms around the Autobot to get to the report, which was what Ironhide was counting on). Eventually he stepped back from Ironhide, red optics livid and glowing with rage. The Autobot on the other hand was looking rather amused. So Starscream punched him in the face.

"OW! Grrgh..." Ironhide stumbled back and dropped the report, stepping on it and easily cracking the report screen and snapping the flat metal device in half. Starscream stared in exasperation, before looking up at Ironhide in fury. He was currently taking a hand away from his recently assaulted face to glare at the Decepticon that always seemed surprisingly quick on the strike.

"Idiot! That was five hours of work!" Ironhide didn't say anything, just staring at him and apparently thinking. He concluded the best course of action was to punch Starscream in the face. The Decepticon stumbled back from the blow, before righting himself and glaring at Ironhide. Then he leaped at him with a battlecry that was long overdue. Ironhide's optics widened in shock, getting thrown to the ground and punched in the face again before catching the second fist and rolling to get ontop of Starscream and punch him in return. The Decepticon had used the brief moment Ironhide was trying to balance himself in order to throw him off and over his head, landing heavily on the floor.

Ironhide scrambled and flipped up, seeing Starscream getting back to his feet. Not wanting to give him any sort of headway, he quickly leaped at him to tackle him over. Starscream suddenly turned to the side and grabbed Ironhide's arm up to the shoulder, rolling down to the floor to flip him and using his momentum to keep him going right into the wall.

--------------------------------------- And now for something completely different

"... Thundercracker?"

"What is it?"

"... Are we there yet?"

--------------------------------------- Back on Earth...

There was a beeping and alert from the computer, making Optimus Prime look up in confusion. Someone was trying to contact someone within the base. Now (again, courtesy of Starscream), the computer had been designed to block all communications from individuals inside the base going out, and outside the base going in. Instead, all communications were rerouted to the main computer in order to prevent hacking of any kind, and unauthorized communications. From what the computer could tell him, the message was coming from outside the base, and even outside of Earth. He let the communications through.

"This is Optimus Prime of the Earth Autobot base." The communications line crackled, and Optimus could feel anticipation build.

"Optimus Prime, this is Autobot Sideswipe. We are approaching Earth. ETA: one Earth hour." Optimus let go a non-existant breath he had been holding.

"Good to hear from you, Sideswipe. Is Sunstreaker accompanying you?"

"Roger. Sunny is right here." There was a slight crackle as the conversation was joined.

"Optimus, I'm going to need assistance when I land. Some Professional human repairers if you have them."

"What for? Have you taken on damage?"

"Nothing bad, but entering the atmosphere is going to seriously wreck my paint job." There was a derisive snort of laughter from Sideswipe, but Optimus just sighed (though he was grinning in amusement).

"Affirmative. We'll be ready." He chuckled. Ironhide could take a break from watching Starscream with the twins here. Although Starscream's fate would probably be... less than desireable under their watch. It might actually be a bad idea... Well, they needed to be informed of their arrival anyway. First he contacted the U.S. Military.

Luckily, Colonel Maybourne wasn't the one who picked up.

"General Jack O'Neil of the U.S. Airforce here. Who's calling?" Optimus paused, since generally that wasn't who or where he was contacting, but whatever.

"This is Optimus Prime of the Autobot base. Your military has specifically requested any updates regauding events involving Earth."

"Oooh, right. You're the guys... from... the big robot planet. So, what's up?" It was a little refreshing to talk with someone that wasn't so hardnosed as most of the military humans he'd talked with. It was also a little odd.

"Two of my subordinates are approaching the atmosphere. They will arrive in approximately one hour. Do not antagonize them. Please escort them here."

"Soo... they're just kind of... gonna hit? Can't they land near your base?"

"They will try. But it isn't exactly a precise art."

"Well that makes sense... I guess. No problem then. I'll take care of it personally. Make sure they don't kill anyone or we're going to have some problems, okay?"

"Thank you. I will inform them." It would be good for Sunstreaker and Sideswipe to meet humans and get to know them.

------------------------------ ("WTF MORE STARGATE" I hear you cry)

Optimus Prime had closed a communications link between him and the twins, having told them to perhaps try and talk with the humans some since they would be around them at some point or another. So it was time to let Ironhide and Starscream know (they had about forty-five minutes until the twins landed). He opened the general intercom to the shooting range.

"Starscream, Ironhide, both Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are arriving on Earth in forty-five minutes." The response that he could hear going on in the room was... not favorable. There were grunts and some sounds of scrapes and metal battling.

"Let go of me damnit!" It was Starscream yelling.

"Say 'uncle' and I'll think about it." Ironhide seemed to be struggling to hang onto something, probably Starscream.

"I am NOT going to resort to rediculous human terminology!"

"Fine then! Ask for mercy!"

"Never!" There was a short moment of concentrated silence before a loud grunt, followed by a crashing noise, and more sounds of scuffling.

"OW!" A ramming noise made its way to the speakers.

"Eat steel, Autobot!" Optimus shut the intercom off at this point, shifting his weight to one foot and lowering his head to shake it. Okay, he'd tell Ratchet and then he would check on them and hope that the fight had been resolved. Then repeat the message if they were too preoccupied to get it the first time.

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Held together with sticky tape and hope!!!

The forgetfulness on the trap and skeet thing is rediculous since I go to the shotgun range once a month or so...

And there was SOME kind of mention of 'jet judo' in Transformers Armada, I think...

... Still need a co-author with Transformers experience.

Anyone else feel Ironhide is getting out of character? D: halp! Would he get this odd if he was consantly dealing with a grumpy-pants (no matter how much of a hottie he may be) all day long?


	12. Reprogramming

Chapter 12

Long A/N:

First I would like to introduce my wonderful new co-author: Silver-ShadowSpark!!!!

She's going to keep me in line and stop me from stomping all over of Ironhide's personality. No matter how funny he is while on Crack... or something.

For those of you who are like 'WTFM8?!' at my Ironhide; ... I'M SORREH! -flaildropsobwhimper- But I can't have comedy if they're both serious and reserved. I can't keep my stories serious, I always have to work in humor.

BUT NOT TO WORRY! The funny is coming to an end. And he shall be back to his usual Decepticon-hating, gruff greeting ways. Because a story full of nothing but random dies. It needs variety.

For those of you who are sad to see my slightly cracked-out Ironhide go... um... XD Thanks for liking him and not thinking oddly of me.

:3 Kudos to those who went out of their ways to contact me outside of reviews. (RedRequim and Zatnik; thank you for helping out as much as possible with TC and Skywarp's personality quirks.)

X.X damn you random person that had put the thought of slash in my mind because I haven't been able to get rid of it.

And the big one:

MY PLOT HOLES (which were revealed by Yasei Raiden, and Fire From Above no matter how hard I tried to hide them under the rug and forget about them)

Fire:

Yes, technically going by the Movie-verse, Starscream is bigger than ALL of the Autobots since he is a jet. But if I made Ironhide short, AND still being miffed at Starscream, it would make him feel more like an angry short person to me. Plus I think it's kind of wierd if the captive-persons is bigger than his captors. By... a lot. So I tried to slip in and make you all believe they are the same size or so. And its hard for the movie-verse Transformers to make expressions... with their... lack of faces. I'm trying to gravitate to the cartoon-versions of them. They're slowly morphing shape! Oh noes! Um... I have no idea how to fix this in short. Which is why it was hidden under a rug and never spoken of...

For those of you who really don't give a hoot about this plot hole, kudos to you, because I've been trying to pretend it doesn't exist. -sweatdrop-

Yasei:

As for Ironhide's extreme personality malfunction... um... It wouldn't be funny without it...? -shame- The best I can come up with is when you're around a really quiet person, you become loud in order to balance stuff out. Or when you're around a really grumpy person, you become hyper to balance the situation out. I do believe I am bullshitting myself here. As for the Lambo twins, I had no idea about their car model, and your suggestion shall be put into play. o.o Sorreh about the mistake.

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"... What are you two doing back in here?" Ratchet asked as Starscream and Ironhide both walked into the medical bay. Both of them were skulking, Ironhide because he'd pretty much lost since he had been pinned when Optimus came in and told the both of them to stop. Starscream was unhappy because he had to go to the medical bay. AGAIN. And the news about the twin Autobots arriving hadn't helped his mood.

"It's just some dents and crushed hydrolics. I can fix them myself." Starscream stated, walking to the medical table. Of course, Ratchet wouldn't let that happen.

"You're not allowed to have medical tools to repair yourself." He might re-activate his weapons systems.

"_Fine._" He grumbled. Ironhide took a seat on a medical table while Ratchet took up the appropriate tools and approached the both of them. They recieved a sharp 'twap' on the head.

"Ow!"

"Hey-!"

"I do NOT want to see you two back in here because of some stupid shinanigans. You got that?" The tool was pointed menacingly at both of their faces. He recieved slightly timid nods of confirmation. "Good. Now hold still."

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It was tea-time. And Big-Ben's small hand moved to the 4 O'clock position, starting a series of 'bongs' to signal that it was indeed four O'clock. The large clock tower didn't reach the fourth and final 'bong' before a flaming object yeilding from outer space crashed through it. The object had a twin that traveled slightly behind it, both landing in a blessedly vacant lot and building. Tea-time was foiled for many a British person, and there was burning and rubble in the general vicinity of the area. The fact it was in the middle of the day probably wouldn't help the two newly-landed Autobots to camoflage.

"Ugh… there's a lot of… stuff… in the way…" A brick from the now unstable building landed on the head of a newly emerged Autobot, "Gah!" Just looking at all the scuffs and scratches on his pristine silver body made him angry.

"Sunny, we're in daylight. We need to camoflage as fast as possible." He looked back to see a gaggle of reasonably sized metal machines and humans stopping and approaching them. Moving quickly, he jumped nimbly and rolled through to the other side of the smashed building, his brother following. Normally they were too big to be noticed (at night) but during the day, seeing a giant robot trying to sneak around on tip-toes was nothing short of… odd. And hilarious to those that weren't paralyzed with shock, which was few.

The first two objects they came upon were scanned, bodies modifying and folding infront of many civilian eyes to a red and yellow Laborghini. Both newly formed cars took off immediately down the street and turned a corner to get away from the action scene as fast as possible. They sent out a radio communiation signal on the Autobot wavelength.

"Autobots Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. Landing successful and camoflauge achieved." They were surprised to hear a completely unfamiliar voice answer them.

"You guys landed on a different CONTINENT! And in the middle of the day! Now we have to haul your asses back over here." Both cars pulled into an inconspicous and shaded parking area where other cars lacked drivers.

"Who are we speaking with?"

"Yeah, you're not Optimus."

"This is General O'neil of the United States Air Force. I've spoken with Optimus _myself_ and promised to deliver you guys to their new base of operations. It's going to be a while until we get over the Atlantic, so the two of you stay out of trouble for a few hours. Got it?"

"Roger."

"I think we're already in trouble…"

"What? What could you have possibly done in three minutes?" General O'neil's voice sounded urgent and stressed.

"Well… you see, there was this large structure we crashed through on impact…"

"Which large structure?"

"Hold on, I'm researching it…"

"This really tall thing with circles on it."

"I do believe it falls into the category of a 'clock tower'." There was radio silence to see if the communications got through.

"… YOU CRASHED THROUGH BIG-BEN?!"

"Sides did it."

"Hey!"

----------------------------------------------------------------

After repairing the small ammount of strained gears, stripped bolts, and crushed hydrolics, Ratchet was ready to shoo the both of them out of his medical bay. But Starscream insisted on a check up of Ironhide's mainframe.

"What for?"

"He's been acting like an immature sparkling, that's what!"

"Have not!" Starscream turned around and pointed a finger in his face.

"Yes, you have! Either your time on this inferior planet has dulled your common sense, or you've been damaged." Ratchet sighed as it looked like the other two would start another fight right in the middle of his medical bay, which was unacceptable.

"You're just a stick in the mud is all, there's nothing wrong with me!" Starscream was suddenly struck with genius.

"Ratchet, if there IS something wrong with Ironhide's mainframe and you fix it, the chances of our visits to the medical bay decreasing are at 38." Now THAT was something the medic would listen to.

"On the table Ironhide."

"What?! You can't just listen to him like that!"

"I can. Doctors orders; get on the table and lay down or I'll have Starscream and Optimus hold you down." Ironhide uneasily got onto the table, glancing at Ratchet.

"… Don't do anything to mess with me, alright?"

"We'll see."

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"… Hey, Sunny?"

"What is it, Sides?" The both of them had decided to try and stay out of trouble by remaining in the parking lot, but were getting bored fairly quickly. They failed to notice the green stip along the curb that said '30 minute parking'.

"What do you suppose happened in the final bout for the All Spark?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

"Well… I dunno."

"Shh! Someone is approaching." It had been a grand total of three hours, and a human had come by once to smack all of the cars in the parking lot on the tires with some small ball that left a chalk mark on them abour half an hour ago. That person was back. Both Autobots fell silent as they were approached, the human standing infront of them was writing something on a pad. After a moment, the paper was torn off and placed on Sideswipe's windshield. Another was placed on Sunstreaker's. And then the person left.

"… What do you think that was about?" Sunny asked.

"I dunno, I can't see what they wrote."

"Hold on." An optic extended from the front headlights to swivel around and read the paper stuck under his windshield wipers, then his brother's. It took a moment of searching the wireless web they had discovered in order to understand human writing. "… It says 'parking ticket'."

"'Parking Ticket'? Do you think that's a good thing?"

"Lemme see…" Sunstreaker did another search, "… Apparently tickets are used to gain access to events. Like… a 'baseball game' or 'movie' or 'carnival'." The optic retracted back into place.

"… That's odd. Why do you think they just gave us one?"

"Because we're awesome like that?"

"But aren't we 'parking' right now?"

"… Hmh."

"… Humans are weird."

"Yeah…"

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"… Ironhide." The Autobot called upon tilted his head up slightly to look at Ratchet, who was checking his mainframe.

"Yeah?"

"… Have you been making unauthorized modifications to your targeting and weapons activation systems?" Starscream had taken a seat in a large chair to wait for the examination's results, redoing his report that had been terminated by a large Autobot foot earlier today.

"Yeah?" Ratchet stomped a foot in fustration, rolling his optics.

"Your mainframe and motherboard only have so much space available. You've been deleting functions and safety walls to fit in your upgrades." Starscream looked up.

"… You've been messing with your settings?" Well now THAT made sense. Ironhide put out the best and only excuse he had.

"We don't know when we may be attacked, so I wanted to be extra prepared."

"You mean you were BORED and decided to mess with your own programming!" Starscream sneered. Ironhide glared at him.

"Shaddup, you."

"No."

"Then I'll make you shut up!"

"IRONHIDE." The Autobot was paused half-way sitting up by the medic's command. Starscream went back to redoing his report. Ratchet pulled Ironhide back down to the table and bonked him on the head with a tool.

"Hey!"

"This is going to take a while."

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OH-HAH. THE SOLUTION TO THE PLOTHOLE.


	13. Details Details

Chapter 13

-DOOM- School has started -DOOM-

The last chapter was rather short...

And I've noticed that all my chapters have gotten progressively shorter and less-paragraphed(detailed?) as the serious-ness ebbed.

:D Your reviews feed mah ego -heart-. I squee internally and read them over and over for suggestions and inspiration.

In an effort to study for vocabulary and cut time, I'm going to try and sprinkle chapters with whatever vocab-list I have assigned for the week/weeks.

Stargate characters are just being used to take the place of whatever humans (that are military related) that are needed in the story. Saves me the trouble of trying to introduce any of my own characters (which all of you will feel neutral toward anyway). So you may see more of them, you may not.

And Finally:

My crazy one-liners (for the person who asked) come from role playing. Loosens up your writing skills and makes writing more natural. RPing usually requires you to write up some sort of good action or situation description on the spot without messing up in spelling, grammar, or general read-ability in the first shot. Me and my good role play friends will often do almost rapid fire with posts, since lengthy descriptions should be saved for important points/situations, and when you're not doing this over an instant messenger.

I will also narrate imaginative/possible/out-of-proportion scenes quickly should the situation come around. (I also say 'lol', 'wtf?', 'omg' and 'hax', but that's beside the point)

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For the past four hours, they had been waiting patiently. The twin's patience was running on fumes at this rate, since the human culture was intiresting for only so long via the inter-thing. All things considered (like their track record) they had been very well behaved, minus taking-out a large historical human building on impact. Sunny's hydrolics tensed and stretched a little, drawing Sideswipe's attention.

"... I am WAY bored."

"I know. I'm sure we can look around as long as we're careful..."

"This place is mostly a whole lot of buildings, so we can look around some so long as we're careful."

"That General guy can contact us when he gets here." Sunstreaker's engine started up, followed by Sideswipe's as they pulled out of their parking spots. Of all the random searches on the internet, they hadn't bothered to look up the traffic laws. _And_ hadn't bothered to notice that a driver-less car would probably seem odd to any humans that noticed.

The twins drove down the street, scanning people walking along the side walks and idly noting buildings. Scent receptors picked up a whole variety of smells and mapped them out, separating them. Damp earth, baked human food, perfumes, human pheramones, flowers, and smoke all filled the air in varying degrees. This place was a lot more alive than Cybertron now-a-days.

It was about four hours later that Sunny and Sides found themselves outside of human civilization and along the coast in the forest. Being in that car-form was restricting and it had taken a whole hour for them to understand why the humans would stop and stare at them, and they put up hollograms of drivers to make up for it. After exploring the streets of 'London' for another hour and a half, they realized they had been expecting something (anything) great or fantastic, and that no-such thing was going to happen. At this point they decided to find some way out of the city, and had broken every traffic law on the way out. Sirens and yells of 'Bloody Americans!' had followed them as they wove, turned, skimmed and avoided everything in their path on the way out of the city. All the police had become were a minor annoyance that gave them more of a reason to leave. Both had transformed into full-body mode and had decided to hide amongst the trees, and since it was dark, it was hard to see them.

"Do you think the message about the whole... 'no more All-Spark' has reached Cybertron yet?" Sideswipe asked, observing the tree branches and leaves of a tree he was leaning on. Sunstreaker was examining his new, yellow paintjob with intirest and trying to avoid leaning against anything rough or bumping against any scratchy branches.

"It's been a while, but I dunno. I kind of wonder what's left of it now. Last I saw, it was turning into a dump." The long war had taken a serious toll on the planet, and Autobot and Decepticon ships had spread out to other parts of the galaxy for more war-ground. Few areas on the planet were still operational, and most free space had been devistated and ruined; littered with fallen Cybertronians.

"... How do you suppose the Decepticons are going to get along without Megatron?" Sideswipe wondered aloud.

"They operated pretty well while he was gone for that long time. Didn't Starscream lead them?" Sunstreaker glanced behind himself before leaning carefully against the tree.

"Yeah, but now he's _dead_ dead. Not 'we sort of misplaced him' dead."

"We should take the oportunity to wipe them all out. They're disorganized without a leader." Sunny sighed a bit whistfully, processor going over battle-tactics and weapon-functions that ached to be used.

"... How would they even _know_ Megatron is dead now anyway?"

"... Hmh. Not sure. What do you suppose happened to those two Seekers we ditched on that moon?" There was some silence as they both speculated.

"Probably just spinning their gears trying to find us." They laughed at that. A sudden communications link opened to them.

"General Jack O'neil here, we've reached Europe. Where are you guys?"

"About damn time." Sunstreaker grumbled, getting off the tree and looking up around at the sky for any sign of them. No luck... Sideswipe walked closer to the forest edge.

"General O'neil, this is Autobot Sideswipe. I'm trasmitting exact coordinates."

"Roger, we'll be there soon." Sideswipe took a seat on the ground with a bit of a relieved sigh, scanning the forest floor for anything intiresting.

"... Think there are any Decepticons left on this planet?" Sunny asked after a while.

"We'll find out when we see Optimus."

--------------------- MEANWHILE

"Proximity to 'Earth' increasing. ETA of 53 hours." Thundercracker informed Skywarp, since he was sure the other wasn't paying attention. Sure enough; he hadn't been.

"What? Oh. Right..." There was radio silence for a while before he spoke again, "... Hey, Thundercracker?" The Decepticon in question groaned internally, since Skywarp's questions tended to be outright stupid and random at best.

"What is it?"

"... Won't it be faster if I just teleport us there?"

"..." Crud.

----------------------

"Obviously_ none_ of you are qualified for much anything other than grunt work." Starscream had redone half the ammount of report work that had been destroyed earlier, and had been present for Ratchet's lengthy lecture about why Ironhide should in no way ever even THINK about modifying his new programming to increase battle efficiency. It had taken a while for Ratchet to discover what was missing, and then to restore and balance out his processor. Ironhide had sat like a stubborn 6 year old human child being critisized at length by his mother. In the end, Ratchet had told Ironhide if he wanted to modify anything to consult a professional other than himself since he was sick and tired of repairing his botched upgrades and wanted nothing more to do with them.

Needless to say, Starscream was taking attention away from his report to be smug, and Ironhide was in a bad mood.

"Shut the slag up, punk. That ain't true and you know it." Ironhide gave Starscream's shoulder a reminding shove from behind since the Decepticon had taken point. All movement through the base had to go through the main control room, which meant they didn't have to radio in to Optimus where they (Starscream specifically) were going when they could notify him in person. Starscream glared back at him for the casual (if not angry) touch.

"Fine. _You_ aren't qualified for much more than grunt work." The Decepticon had lifted the report to continue it, the other hand drifting to the side of the door they had reached in order to access the panel and open it. He really didn't need to look behind him to know Ironhide bristled at his remark, since the other hated being demeaned as much as Starscream, and didn't have nearly the same ammount of tolleration for it.

"Why you little-" Starscream opened the door, and several things happened at once.

"Great Primus, it's Starscream!"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you-"

"GET HIM!! SUNNY, HOLD HIM DOWN!"

"What-?! AUGH!!"

"...(LOL)"

Since everything had happened relatively quickly, here is a blow by blow, slow-motion account of what happened:

Optimus had been greeting the two, newly-arrived Autobot twins (a bit warily) and informing them on some of the incidents and situations they were in with the United States Government. Then the doorway to the Medical bay area had opened, and both twins had turned to see Starscream. Acting on pure battle-instinct and a lack of information, they had immediatly turned on him and leaped at the Decepticon with Sunstreaker taking the lead and Sideswipe pulling out his weaponry. Completely unprepared and without weapons of his own (a report panel didn't count), Starscream had been tackled over rather violently and pinned to the floor, making him drop the report panel and looking up into the barel of a gun. Ironhide had remained still in some sort of daze of suspended shock while staring at the mess infront of him (he'd been far enough back to avoid being hit without moving much) before breaking out into loud raukus laughter that he didn't even _think_ to assuage. Needless to say, he wasn't in such a bad mood anymore.

"PRIME!" Starscream lifted his head slightly to try and look down his body at Optimus, who was still standing and had let out a tired sigh. Of course the very fact that the twins were there would elicit SOME sort of misfortune(premedatated or not). Said twins were slightly put off and confused since Ironhide was laughing, and had been behind the Decepticon at a rather close proximity. The gruff, armory expert had always been known to toe the line (if not bend the rules all together) when situations involved Decepticons.

"Sideswipe, Sunstreaker; Starscream's being here has my approbation." Said Autobots looked at eachother in confusion, down at a rather aggitated looking Starscream, and then at Ironhide (whose laughter had subsided to chuckles).

"Yeah. You can let him up." After a moment of hesitation both twins backed off slowly, giving pointed looks to Ironhide and Optimus for an explanation. The rather petulant Decepticon stood and brushed imaginary dirt off of himself before casting a glare at both of the twins and then walking to pick up the report panel with great umbrage. Then he glanced at Optimus, lifting the blessedly undamaged report a little to draw attention to himself.

"I'm going to recharge. We'll clean up the damage to the shooting range later." The 'we' being himself and Ironhide, whose good mood mellowed as he was reminded of responsibility. Starscream walked toward another door, scanning and continuing his report, with Ironhide starting after him.

"Same here. I'll see _you_ two later; so stay out of trouble." Ironhide pointed at the twins rather aggresively before walking to the now open door and dissapiering Starscream. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe looked at eachother (thinking the same thing) before looking at Optimus.

"Okay."

"What the frag." Obviously some explaining needed to happen.

----------------- Ba-da-dum Ba-da-dum Ba-da-dum

"So, lemme get this straight..." Sunny began slowly. The twins began to switch off in their speech patterns, like they usually did when along the same line of thought.

"You-" Sides picked up.

"Ironhide." Optimus corrected.

"-captured Starscream at a human military base." Sunny finished.

"And brought him here with the hope of creating a coalition-" Sideswipe started.

"An alliance. Something permanent." Optimus.

"-between the remaining Decepticons and us." Sunstreaker.

"Yes." Optimus again.

"So he said 'yes'-" Sunny.

"-and has been working here on the base-" Sideswipe.

"-under Ironhide's supervision." Sunny again. Optimus nodded, seeing both twins were still trying to make sure they got every bit of detail right and were trying to believe it.

"His weapons systems have been taken offline, and I have been checking over all of his upgrades. He's very-"

"Annoying?" Sides.

"Untrustworthy." Sunny.

"Whiney." Sides again.

"Touchy?" Sunny.

"... I was going to say 'dilligent' in his work, but-"

"He's still useless." Sides.

"He's giving _us_ the badluck he gave Megatron." Sunny _again_.

"He's super boring." And Sides.

"Quiet! Let me finish." Optimus raised his voice to a frightening rumble in fustration, watching as the twins stopped talking and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue.

Oh yes, it was good to see them again. ... Sort of.

"Barricade and Scorpinok are still out there, the US military is still looking for them, and it would be good if Ironhide got back out in the field." He waited to see if they would understand what he was getting at. Sunstreaker started off a bit slowly again.

"... Alright, so who is going to watch Starscream?" There was a bout of silence before they seemed to understand all at once. Lurid grins began to creep onto their faces, and the twins glanced at each other. Optimus could feel a slightly uneasy premonition arising, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Except maybe feel a little sorry for the Decepticon soon-to-be turned victim.

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BTW, I hate English class.


	14. New Arrivals

Chapter 14

I has your sammiches; therefore, I am God.

I have no idea on Skywarp's teleportation abilities, but I'm guessing he can extend it to others beside himself by moving closer to or touching them. And if he can't do that officially; HE CAN NOW BITCHES! ... -coughshiftyeyes- (If Zatnik's Mirage can cloak a whole group of Autobots, my Skywarp can teleport one or three Decepticons)

Did I mention the program (Wordpad) that I am using has no spell-check? So kudos to my mom for correcting spellings, grammars, and sentence structures in this chapter (props for the copy editors, for she is one.)

I'm going out on a limb as far as the military stuff. So if you totally buy it, yay for me.

If my Twins and/or Seekers are off in any way, tell me please.

And mom was playing with the electricity while I was doing Barricade's scene. So I'd write something and then the computer would shut off. Que dramatic wail.

The pelvis makes a good bowl for organs.

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"Of all the Autobots in the whole COSMOS, those two would be the ones to arrive..." Ironhide grumbled, having caught up with Starscream and was walking almost side-by-side with the Decepticon, who was still checking and working on the report panel. Those two would be nothing but trouble, and Ironhide didn't want anything to do with them. Unlike Starscream, they got in your face and you could NEVER get used to them (he wouldn't admit it, but he preferred the grumpy Decepticon over those two).

"I'm not sure what you're complaining about. I'm going to be the most-likely target." Starscream grumbled, tapping at something on the panel before turning to the chosen room and opening it via the panel installed next to it. Because of whatever unpaid-debts in battle, Starscream _reaaaally_ wasn't looking forward to a close future with those two.

The room had two flat tables and a lock with a pass-code that was kept from Starscream to make sure he didn't leave without someone else knowing. Both of them entered, Ironhide mulling over what had been stated, smirking a little and then locking the door behind him before walking to his recharge table.

"Yeah... you're probably right. Now I'm actually kind of looking forward to tomorrow." He laid down without much care, stretching slightly and folding his massive arms behind his head.

"Can it." The Decepticon grumbled. Ironhide could hear Starscream taking a seat, going to stay up for a while before actually going into recharge in order to cram some more into the report. Like he usually did. But he could wait. It took a half an hour before Starscream finally put the report down and seemed to finally give into recharge.

----------------

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. The birds chirped, random insects buzzed, and Barricade lurked in the bushes. He had chosen a quiet urban neighborhood in order to lay low, with houses near a large lake and children running about and playing. This was an ideal place to take recharge, since the crime-rate of the area was non-existant and there was less of a chance of some punks trying to take him for a joy-ride. Some little kids had pointed at him with excitement since his camoflage was a general friendly figure in the Human Society. Barricade had set a perimeter scan to detect anything much larger than a squirrel, so when a little boy with his mother in tow had run up to the car, he'd thrown up a hologram quickly.

"Tommy, don't bother the nice policeman." The little boy patted at the driver-door.

"Mistuh puh-leeze man, can yoo help me find Buddy?" The 'nice policeman' in question had bright red eyes that looked highly critical and unfriendly. His hair was short and black with a white streak that looked like it would grow more prominent in time. He was wearing a standard police uniform, and had just pulled out some sunglasses that were in his breast-pocket in order to hide his eyes. Alarming any of these meat-bags was the last thing he needed.

"...Who is 'Buddy'?" Barricade was regretting having not studied human social interactions, and would have to wing it at this point. Or eliminate the humans quickly and quietly. The mother stepped forward and put her arms around her son to hold him back a little, looking in through the window at the police officer. The window was rolled down.

"He's our golden retriever. Earlier this morning he jumped fence while my son was playing with him." She put on a friendly smile, though it faltered a little at the cold and calculating gaze that seemed to smoulder behind the sunglasses. The boy slapped his hands against the driver door again, and the surface sensors picked up something sticky. Egh. Both humans stepped back when the police car door suddenly opened, the policeman stepping out of the car to stand between them and the vehicle. At the moment, Barricade was doing a frantic search for whatever a 'golden retriever' was.

"Mistah, why you in the grass?" The boy asked, leaning against his mother's arms. The police car was off the road and on the the grass, under a tree where he was trying to stay out of sight.

"Because it's too hot in the sun." His piercing gaze was directed down at the boy, who obviously wasn't realizing that the police officer didn't seem to like him. At all. The mother cleared her throat and the police officer's head snapped up to look at her instead, "...Do you have anything of 'Buddy's?" He asked. She held out a leash and Barricade locked onto the scent. Both humans watched as he eyed the leash but didn't take it, before looking around slowly. The little boy's eyes had wandered to the police car, looking a the intense cursive that he couldn't really read.

"Momma, what's that say?" She glanced at the usual trade-mark in cursive writing.

"'To Protect and Serve' honey." She did a double take though. The policeman pointed at a chosen location where perimiter scans had picked up the dog.

"Try over there." To Punish and Ensnare.

There was a sudden shattering noise as Barricade's back window broke, the police car starting up with an aggresive and alarmed roar. The distraction caused the hologram to flicker as he snapped his head to the direction of the assault. Inside scans revealed a baseball, and the hologram witnessed some kids quickly flee in terror, dropping the baseball bat one of them was carrying. The mother quickly pulled her son away and both hurried from the car as the hologram flickered again and disappeared, drawing an awed shout of 'coooool!' from the little boy.

Frag it all.

-----------------

"Of course you can come by. It is your 'Spring break' now, isn't it?" Optimus was introducing Sunny and Sides to Sam over the communications link between them and Bumblebee, "You are always welcome here, Sam."

"Well then, it'll be a pleasure to meet you in person, Sam." Sides grinned.

"I want FULL detail on how you kicked Megatron's tailpipe." Sunny added, nodding to no one in particular.

"Great! I'll tell Mikaela too. We'll all see you later today, Optimus." The communications link closed and Sunstreaker stretched some.

"I can't believe Megatron was done in by a HUMAN." Sideswipe muttered in disbelief. Information had been jumbled about when Optimus has asked if they wanted to meet the two civilian humans on the planet that knew them. It wasn't like they had much else to do. The room to the only two sleeping Cybertronians was locked, and Ratchet had immediatly chased them out of the medical bay when they'd dropped in.

"Those are some crazy odds." Sunny agreed, before wandering to one of the many doors connected to the main control room. This doorway would lead to the new shooting range that had been designed by Starscream, so the twins were a bit iffy about trying it out. The doorway to his left opened suddenly, Ironhide and Starscream walking in. Ironhide was taking point with Starscream working on the report panel, walking behind him. The Autobot raised a hand in greeting.

"Morning." Though it was actually afternoon, since they all went into recharge in shifts to make sure someone was awake at all times. Of course the only ones stupid enough to correct him would be in that room at that moment.

"It's 1426, local time." Sides almost sang, grinning as Ironhide gave him a straight glare that told him to shut up. Sunny walked over to the both of them from behind and promptly slung both arms around both of their shoulders.

"You two recharge well or what?" He grinned cheekily as Startscream was pulled off balance and his attention was drawn away from the report, glaring at the Autobot. Ironhide lifted his arm from around his shoulders and dropped it before stepping away from him.

"Don't you two have something better to do? Recon? Anything?" He grumbled, absently noting Starscream ducking out from under the other's arm to walk away from the two. Optimus turned from the main terminal.

"Actually, I was thinking you should go back out, Ironhide."

The weaponry-obsessed Autobot perked in some surprise. "Seriously Optimus?" His leader nodded.

"Sam will be coming by in a bit with Mikaela to meet Sunstreaker and Sideways." Ironhide grinned, looking forward to getting back outside. Both Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were sneaking up on Starscream (who had sensed the impending doom) and turned in time to be jumped on, stumbling back and desperately trying to regain balance.

"GAHH!!"

"And guess who gets to Decepticon-sit you?" Sunny piped, not sparing any weight as he leaned on Starscream. He jerked his shoulder to try and throw them off, optics narrowed in fury and unwilling belief.

"You've got to be kidding me." Sides just slapped him on the back.

"Oh, of course we're not." He hummed. Starscream directed his glare to Optimus.

"Prime...!"

"Sorry Starscream, but they'll go out when Ironhide comes back." Starscream quickly ducked down, causing the twins to crash into each other a little.

"I hate you all." He grumbled.

"But we're like family now!" Sunny spread his arms dramatically, Sides mimicking him.

"We're all supposed to get together!!" They hugged each other simultaneously to imitate 'getting along'. Starscream just grumbled and walked to the doorway that led to the shooting range. Ironhide was trying to stifle his laughter as he turned to follow Starscream, patting him on the back.

"Sucks to be you."

"Shaddup." They still had to clean the shooting range up. The door down that chosen hall opened and closed without a hitch, and the twins released one another.

"Well! If Ironhide is leaving today, we can't just have him go without a proper greeting." Sideswipe raised his pointer finger for emphasis.

"We'll just have to work quickly." Sunny chimed, and then the both of them left through another doorway, with Optimus watching. This really wouldn't end well. He opened a com link to the shooting range and down that corridor.

"Ironhide, you may want to keep on high alert. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe have something planned before you leave." Not that there was much any of them could do about it. The twins just kind of... happened. Like a natural disaster.

"Roger that Optimus. I figured as such." Ironhide didn't sound terribly happy about the information.

So as predicted, in an hour's time he heard a loud crash and two surprised yells from the shooting range. He had noted Sunny and Sides passing through the control room casually with buckets of something, and had advised against whatever they were planning. The twins had said they would of course be doing nothing of the sort, and disappeared down the hall with the doorway closing behind him. Optimus could clearly hear what was being yelled.

"WHAT THE #$&!" Starscream.

"SUNSTREAKER! SIDESWIPE!" Ironhide.

And maniacal laughter as the twins fled.

-----------------

Two foreign objects entered the Earth atmosphere, exterior detectors sensing their metallic skin heat upon entry. They skimmed along and remained high above the clouds, scanning the world's geography before one opened a communication link on the Decepticon frequency.

"This is Decepticon Seeker Thundercracker responding to a radio command made by Seeker Commander Starscream. Please respond." Both Seekers waited for a response, the radio link remaining silent for the longest time. Were they too late...?

"Thundercracker! I need assistance immediately. Transmitting coordinates." It was Barricade, and it sounded urgent. With no radio-in from Starscream to counteract their order, both seekers turned their attention to the coordinates given. They needed to know where their Commanding Officer was and why he wasn't responding. If that meant starting with Barricade, they would do it.

"Skywarp responding. Standby for arrival." He moved closer to his fellow Seeker before quickly initiating his teleportation to speed across the sky in blips to Barricade's location, registered as 'South Carolina' as they accessed the world wide web. The scene they came upon was surprising for one millisecond before battle tactics kicked into high gear.

Barricade was under attack, and was surrounded by human machines, being fired upon by a variety of weaponry that had proven to work the most against Cybertronians. He was trying to pull down a helicopter that had wrapped a steel-wire harpoon around an arm, while his footing and balance was being blown to bits by surrounding ground vehicles and air support. The only thing keeping him from being completely overwhelmed was his ability to turn and flip back up to his feet with each time he was thrown off. But it could only last so long.

Four military jets were bearing down on his position, which would be needed since Barricade had grabbed ahold of a tank and swung it at the hellicopter, creating a fantastic fireball. Then it was the circus all the Sci-fi movies want it to be; Barricade opening fire on all of the ground support until they exploded and firing heavier artillery at two of the hellicopters. The other helicopters fired more grapeling hooks to keep him still and yank him off balance, smaller weapons trying to take him down from the ground vehicles. In his mad flailing, he sighted his backup arriving.

"Do not allow their air support to arrive! Camoflage immediately! Leave no survivors!" The human jets tended to have stronger weapons. Both Thundercracker and Skywarp confirmed the order and veered off to meet the jets head on.

"This is Alpha-dog, two bogies headed in our direction. I do not recognize their model or alliance. What are my orders?"

"Avoid them Alpha-dog, our priority is the Decepticon called Barricade."

"Roger." The leading jet veered to the side, the other three following in formation. Both approaching Cybertronians sped up and veered as well to meet them, opening fire. The formation broke up and veered away, assuming battle-formation and returning fire after regaining their bearings. That took much longer than any Cybertronion would need, and one jet was scattered with bulletholes along its wing. They attempted to radio into the foreign jets.

"Attention intruders: Leave the vicinity immediatly or you will be -" The leader was interrupted by garbled mechanical sounds that would translate as Cybertronian for those who knew. The jets had to veer away in order avoid a head-on collision as Skywarp and Thundercracker plowed through their formation, scanning them and camoflaging in mid-air before turning immediatly to continue firing upon the jets.

"Beta to air-base, intruders have mimicked our shape. They must be Decepticons."

"Take them down. We're sending backup." Skywarp suddenly appeared next to the Beta jet, transforming and leaping onto it as he forsook his weapons for hand-to-hand combat. Wings were torn off and the cockpit smashed in immediatly since the human jet didn't stand a chance. Thundercracker had his fellow Seeker's back as he leaped off the terminally crippled jet to get to another one. They didn't stand much of a chance.

"Barricade, our situation is under control. Do you need assistance?"

"Affirmative."

"They're sending back-up."

"Destroy them if they arrive before we leave. They will have satellite tracking that we need to take care of."

"Acknowledged." Questions about Starscream could be saved until after they were all safe. Thundercracker watched as the evasive jet he had been firing upon finally exploded. Two down, two to go.

---------------------

There was a beeping noise of warning to let any in the room know that a communication relay was being opened.

"This is Jack O'Neil of the US Airforce, I need to speak with Optimus Prime of the Autobot base." Starscream turned, thanking Primus for any distraction from the unending onslaught that was the Autobot twins.

"This is Starscream responding. Optimus is unavailable, what do you want?"

"That's classified to you - I need to talk with Optimus."

"Whatever. I'll go tell him." Starscream grumbled, walking to the door leading to the opening hangar (and back to hell).

The twins were showing off, laughing, and getting along well with Sam and Mikaela, with Bumblebee seeming to be as cautious as possible around the two, but still having fun with seeing them again. Starscream had gotten a face-full of oil earlier that day, so wanted nothing to do with either twin. Optimus was making sure the two were on their best behavior since their promises tended to go unfulfilled. The Decepticon had left the area as soon as he could, continuing his work on his lengthy report in the main control room when the communications link was opened. Ironhide had left before Bumblebee had arrived.

"Prime. You're wanted in the main control room."

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The fight-scene is rather slapped together and jumbled. Sorry, but I don't have that much practice with them.

Remember; when in doubt, ask yourself: "What would Clint Eastwood do?"

Now there's nothing to do but eat cereal at 8 at night and start an essay due tomorrow.


	15. Silence

Chapter 15

im in ur dictionaries, verbin' ur nouns

I am aware that this Starscream is kind of off, but the only Starscream I remotely know was the Armada Starscream (and I liked him A LOT). However, it is true that this is supposed to be the G1 Starscream(whom I have never met), but think about it; would he sit there with Decepticon honor and say 'I'll never help you, even if you kill me'? He's not that stupid, and his self-preservation instinct seems to be his top-priority.

To Susinko: X.x I was afraid of that, and was sure that I'd made some sort of mistake like that in the chapter. (And it's true, Sideways WAS a royal douche-bag, but I'm sure Starscream wouldn't have joined the Autobots if it hadn't been (in part) for his douche-baggy-ness. Everyone is good for something I suppose)

Zatnik: .-. I don't know who 'Hound' is. I'm blaming Cartoon Network for not showing any of the good shows anymore (I.E. Transformers, Justice League Unlimited, Batman Beyond, etc) and replacing them with crappy ones ('Squirrel-Boy'???). I tried looking around You Tube for episodes, but couldn't find them. -sad-

I'm not including any female Cybertronians in this story because just like in the movie, there's no time and it's too much of a hassle. (Arcee was originally slotted to be in the movie, but they replaced her at the last minute with Ironhide because it would take too much time to explain a femm Cybertronian)

Appologies for screwing up on Barricade's motto.

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Optimus had looked up when Starscream entered the room to inform him that a 'Jack O'Neil' was on the line. Unfortunately, the Twin's attention had been directed to the Seeker, and Starscream was dragged out to 'be social'. He'd live, so Optimus wasn't terribly concerned.

"Optimus Prime here."

"Optimus, is that Decepticon still in the room?" Optimus could pick up slight tense tones, almost like he was a bit hurried.

"He's out in the hangar, I don't expect he'll be able to get away from the twins soon." Audio receptors picked up a barely-audible sigh.

"Earlier we encountered the Decepticon Barricade. We tried to capture and not destroy him like you requested." This didn't sound like it ended well. Optimus leaned forward slightly, resting his hands on the terminal.

"I've sent Ironhide out on the field. He could have helped if you'd radioed-"

"We didn't have time for that. The point is that Barricade got away. With help." Optimus frowned, gears making an irritated clicking sound.

"Were you able to track him?"

"No. Just like last time, satelites were taken out. No survivors, but we did get word that it was two jets. Decepticon, we think."

"Two jets?" Optimus shifted his weight a little, thinking. That didn't exactly narrow the count down since there were plenty of airborn Decepticons. If Barricade had radioed (which he probably already has) it's likely that the whole fleet would show up to try and kill them. This left Starscream. Which meant the two jets were Skywarp and Thundercracker.

"That's what we got from what was radioed in before our pilots were taken down. No survivors, and they were gone when reinforcements arrived."

"I'm sorry for your loss." Optimus leaned back, thinking. Starscream didn't need to know if his fellow Seekers arrived, or if ANY other Decepticons arrived. They didn't need him to start plotting (something he had obviously already started). For now, everyone else but Starscream needed to be informed. No mention of the event to tip him off either.

"We're going to be doublechecking every aircraft's clearance in our range. I'll be sure to inform you if we find anything."

"That may not be necessary, General. I think I know who we're dealing with. Thank you for informing me." The communications link was cut, and Optimus paused to think again. First person that needed to be told would be Ironhide, then Ratchet. The Twins were... questionable. But should probably be informed anyway.

A communications link was opened to his armory officer, "This is Optimus Prime, calling Ironhide."

"Ironhide responding. Commander Lennox is here." Ironhide responded in a professional tone, clearly relishing being back out in the field and away from a grumpy Decepticon he couldn't shoot.

"Greetings Commander." Optimus glanced to the door and walked over to it to make sure the Twins were still keeping Starscream busy.

"Nice to hear from you again, Optimus." The Commander tended to prefer the level-headed Optimus to his own officials, so he got along with all of the Autobots more than most of his higher-ups. Which sometimes made it easier to convey information through him to the government instead of directly.

"Ironhide, the military encountered Barricade earlier, but he escaped. I believe Skywarp and Thundercracker helped him."

"Commander Lennox already told me about the incident. But you think Starscream had a hand in this?" Optimus opened the doorway, seeing the hall completely empty, and faint arguing from Starscream coming from the hangar far down the hall.

"In saving Barricade; no. That was an indirect result of his contacting them and their time in arriving here. I believe they will try to find Starscream soon. Barricade already knows he's in our custody." Optimus closed the door and walked back to the computer terminal.

"So you think they're going to start looking around or cause trouble for the humans?"

"Possibly. It wouldn't be hard to access information on our location if they got ahold of the government's computers." All of them were quite for a while after that reminder, searching their minds and processors for a solution.

"...Well, what do you think we should do?" Commander Lennox broke the silence, since his knowledge on Cybertronian's abilities and priorities was lacking. Optimus was quiet for a few moments more.

"...We contact them first. They're going to try and attack us to retrieve Starscream if we don't."

"Optimus, they're going to try that if we do," Ironhide interjected, "and they may get a fix on the base's location while we have a communications link open. They'll want to talk with him." There was another lapsed moment of thoughtful silence

"...Ironhide, can I trust you to talk with them? You can stop at the air base and wait to see if they will come. The humans can be your support if they show up." A soft rumble of Ironhide's engine made its way over the communications link, sounding like 'hmmm'.

"Yeah. I think I like that idea." He could almost see Ironhide's grin.

"Don't over-do it. Commander Lennox, can I trust you to make sure Ironhide doesn't step out of line?" Sure it was a little insulting, but he really needed his request of peace to be delivered _peacefully._ Ironhide snorted, engine revving slightly in irritation. A soft, bemused human chuckle made it over the communications link.

"No problem, Optimus."

"Thank you. Do not tell Starscream about this. Optimus out."

"Roger that."

"Recieved." The communications link was closed, leaving the Autobot leader to stare into space for a little while, thinking.

"..." Well, they had to try and make peace with Thundercracker and Skywarp with an unwitting Starscream as leverage. They still needed to track down Scorpinock, and Barricade had already turned down their offer. All of this needed to be kept secret from Starscream, and they needed to decide what they should do incase they were attacked. A Decepticon fleet was probably on its way...

First things first; time to talk to Ratchet.

----------------------

"You know you're really not all that bad if you're on our side." Sides had been taking the oportunity to be as annoying as possible, and was hanging off of Starscream's shoulder. The jet just grumbled and glared at him.

"For the love of God, somebody kick his ass."

Sam laughed a bit nervously, mostly because they were all many times taller than him, and being around a grumpy Cybertronian seemed like a bad idea. Sunny was standing infront of Starscream, currently giving him a stern visual once-over. It may have been just something to get used to, having a Decepticon around the base, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Which meant Starscream wasn't going to like it, not that he already did.

Mikaela seemed to be content with hiding behind Sam, silently searching for some kind of topic of conversation, since playing 'lets bug Starscream until he finally loses it' didn't sound like such a hot idea.

"So, um... Before the war, what did you do?" She decided that any sort of subject should avoid reminding them of their opposing sides. Sunstreaker glanced down at her a bit curiously, watching as she bucked up more courage, "Well... you know, like Optimus was a leader of Cybertron."

Starscream jerked his shoulder and pulled away from Sideswipe, walking to put Bumblebee between himself and the twins. The yellow camero was seated on the ground, simply enjoying hanging out with friends and being entertained by the touchy Decepticon. Said Decepticon was checking over his report, glancing up to make sure he wasn't being snuck up on.

"I was one of Cybertron's top scientists." Starscream finally responded after a few moments of impatient silence. Sam decided to try and back up his girlfriend and help the conversation along.

"A scientist huh? How'd a scientist become an air commander?" Bumblebee had told Sam general information about Starscream when he'd asked. The Seeker glanced down at them in some annoyance before going back to the report.

"With acceptional ability." Starscream turned and started to walk back to the door in hopes of getting away from them. Sunstreaker began to walk toward him, feeling some sort of odd anger building in him. Perhaps it was fustration.

"You're not supposed to go anywhere without us." He reminded.

Starscream glanced back at him with a glare, "Then come with me. I've got things to do." The Seeker Commander didn't stop to wait, opening the door to the main control room. Sideswipe stepped forward, after him.

"We get first say, and we want to stay here."

"Then I'll wait with Prime." Starscream snapped, doors closing behind him. Sunstreaker growled in annoyance.

"Who does he think he is? He's in our base of operations, and he's supposed to do what we say." Bumblebee and everyone else could sense the akward tension in the room. The young bot piped up with his slightly broken voice.

"He is here for an alliance. Not a prisoner." It was easier to talk with sound bytes and radio clips. He didn't like the sound of his damaged vocals.

"Bumblebee is right you know, if he's going to be any sort of reason to convince the Decepticons to make peace, treating him like a prisoner isn't going to help." Mikaela put in her two cents. Afterall, making Earth the battleground for more Autobot and Decepticon battles would be bad for everyone.

"The peace treaty is doomed to fail no matter what we do." Sunstreaker scoffed. Starscream shouldn't be here anyway. Of any Decepticon, he was the least trustworthy of all of them.

"There's no reason to try and sabatoge it." Sideswipe added slowly, knowing that they were all still guests on this planet. Bumblebee stood up and dusted his hands absently.

"Talk with Optimus." Their leader was very good with keeping them together, and Sunstreaker would listen to him on such a matter. Hopefully.

-----------------------

"Perhaps Bumblebee should stay here. We may need all the hands we can get if they show up." Ratchet was organizing his tools and cleaning the medical bay, with Optimus standing in the middle of the room and talking to him.

"No, we can't have him leave his post. Barricade knows where Sam lives, and may try to get to us through him. We can't let that happen." Optimus's arms were crossed over his large chestplate at the moment.

"Have you informed the US military?"

"They don't know Skywarp or Thundercracker. And they already know about the attack. Those two will try and find Starscream."

"What are you suggesting then?" Ratchet stood up and looked at his leader, pausing his busy work.

"...Try and make peace with them. If they won't accept that, we will have no choice but to resort to other measures."

"... Threats...?" The medic frowned, curious but still concerned.

There was a 'woosh' of the door opening, both Autobots looking to see Starscream and tensing. The Decepticon cast a slow look at both of them before walking to one of the tables.

"I'm staying here to finish my report. I would have stayed in the main communications room, but you weren't there Optimus." Starscream had looked to his report, then looked directly at the Autobot he was addressing. Ratchet shrugged a little.

"The Twins getting to you?" That was the second time.

"You have no idea." The second time Starscream had called him 'Optimus' instead of just 'Prime'. The Decepticon's progress really made the Autobot leader think... hope that this peace treaty had a chance. It was no good to lose yourself to delusions though, and they needed to remain cautious. He needed to inform the twins about Skywarp and Thundercracker's arrivals.

"I'll go talk to them." Optimus turned and walked to the door, leaving silence in his wake. Neither occupants of the room minded though.

--------------------- I got the 'for the love of god, somebody kick his ass' from watching Futurama. Bender for the win.

"So let me get this straight: The Autobots want a _peace treaty_?" Skywarp was sitting in front of Barricade, with Thundercracker next to him. The Seeker was less than happy, "You've gotta be kidding me! They practically kidnap Starscream, and they want a peace treaty." He kicked at a rock and crossed his arms in a huff.

"Contact with Scorpinock has been limited. He spends most of his time underground. I have already sent a signal to the Decepticon fleet. I'm sure Starscream has too." Barricade was trying to keep the distracted Seeker on task. Thundercracker hadn't said anything yet, but seemed to be thinking.

"We should go bust Starscream out. Then blast them from outer space with the star ship." Skywarp ranted, pushing his feet at the earth under him. They were hiding out in the mountains for now, keeping a low profile.

"One problem; we don't know where he is." Barricade pointed out. They would need all the support they could get, and air support was good. Though the fact it was Starscream was a bit iffy… Thundercracker finally spoke up,

"… What are we fighting for?" Both Decepticons looked up at him in confusion. He gave them serious looks of consideration, "It's a reasonable question. The All-Spark has been destroyed, Megatron is gone. It can't be for Cybertron since that place is practically a heap of rubble. So what are we fighting for?" It was quiet for a few moments as they thought this over.

"What do we fight for…?" Skywarp wondered aloud. Barricade gave them both a stony look.

"To win."

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When writing a story; let your imagination go wild. It won't matter what anyone else thinks if you're happy with it. I blame my stories on my overactive imagination and my ADHD. For example, off the top of my head:

Transformers verse in human/cyborg/android terms. Centered around Starscream (because he roxors teh boxors) who flees the Decepticon side for knowing/discovering/learning/etc **something**. Whole war ends, Cybertonians can spread out for absent exploring after fixing up the planet and searching for last bits of rebellion. Starscream is discovered on Earth by chance(can you imagine how jazzed the US Military would be to have a Cybertronian scientist?). Much 'wtf omg nowai' with Starscream having pretty much become an escape artist with practice(and I'm not talking about silly trapped in a bag with handcuffs stuff, I mean being able to scale an elevator shaft without the elevator in 15 seconds((think Prince of Persia))). It will all lead down to what the heck Megatron wanted Starscream dead for. Which I haven't figured out yet. Think of all the crazy escape scenes.

Like most rough ideas, it needs work. But I'll think about it. You're welcome to offer up any ideas. (I like to work with more human characters, and Starscream can more easily blend into human society this way)

I've already been working on absent designs for human Starscream and Ironhide, and will eventually post it up on DA or sommat.


	16. Thunder

Chapter 16

When we came home on Friday, we found the bird cage of our little parakeet (Turq) knocked over and a mess everywhere. Obviously the cat (Shadowfax) had decided to try his hand at a bird after his practice on the lazer and imaginary bugs. The bird was fine and the cat was cowering behind the bed. For those of you who don't know, our parakeet might as well be the Destroyer of Worlds locked up in a little bird body, kidnapped inside a cage. Very small, pretty paranoid, mostly angry. In no way should you attempt to go after her without a net and thick gloves or a towel because she WILL fight you. Anywho...

First off, I'd like to make reccomendations of two stories:

1) Mojo Mayhem (for humor, pure and genius humor)

2) Scream of the Immortal Star (for Starscream fans. Her grammar and word usage needs work, but since English is her second language it's excusable. Her storyline makes me squee and my imagination go crazy.)

Susinko, I'm waiting for your story to hit the interweb. XD If you need any help with mapping the storyline out, talk to me! I've already talked with a reviewer over AIM talk, and just regular AIM. XDD She's helping with the realistic-ness and story mapping of the story I'm thinking about since she's obviously more versed in Transformers everything. I feel like such a n00b. But a noob with ideas-! And murderous bathroom rug(it's a long story, although it's kind of short).

Speaking of feeling n00by, I read a few Transformer stories(a rare thing since my internet access is limited), and comparing them to mine, I seem to be missing an awful lot as far as terminology and personality. My Starscream has been a very good boy compared to what the G1 Starscream is like. Which still stands as to why I like the Armada Starscream better. And I really need to set some time aside to search for Transformers episodes and watch them. This story is wrapping up, but I'm going to have to do more 'research' and talk with people before starting on my new one. I mostly want to do crazy escape scenes though(the Starscream will be built off of Armada Starscream, and I still want to convert the Transformers to human forms. I MAY do it partially, but it definetly won't be permanent. Maybe a small element of the story. Most likely the story will be formatted to an alternate universe with elements taken from different series and adjusted. But we'll see.)

See the footnote for more details about the new story and what you can do to help me out. (Trust me, I need it.)

What was the Armada Starscream before the war anyway? Still a scientist?

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"You can't seriously hope that Autobots and Decepticons can get along." Sunstreaker was standing infront of the Autobot leader, his twin next to him. It had been ten minutes since Bumblebee left, taking Sam and Mikaela home, and they hadn't progressed at all in their conversation. Optimus's patience was wearing thin at this point, and he let out an aggrivated sigh.

"I do not expect both Autobots _or _Decepticons to suddenly set their differences aside in order to co-exist. But we need to start somewhere." Even if it was a little rocky. Starscream was their best bet at influencing Decepticon forces into atleast a cease-fire.

"Don't you think it's a little risky though? He's practically built our base's mainframe from scratch, he _knows_ how everything works." Sideswipe interjected, waving an arm for emphasis. As if the thought hadn't already crossed Optimus's mind.

"In order to be trusted, we need to extend trust first." Not without some back-up modifications though. This base had an underground tunnel system that allowed secret transport to another facility accross the desert. The blueprints were kept out of the database, and known by word-of-mouth only.

Sunstreaker crossed his arms, still looking incredibly disgruntled, "We should atleast get some information out of that damn 'Con..."

--------------------

Sensors indicated it was quite cool, with an external temperature averaging about 60 degrees farenheight. The sky was blocked with medium-gray colored clouds, and audio receptors could faintly pick up far off thunder. It was a reasonably hidden space between the large mountains, with steep rocky slopes holding scruffy shrubbery and large pieces of rocks. Mostly rocks.

Barricade was trying to get into contact with Scorpinok, but it seemed like he was underground. AGAIN. It was like he was hibernating or something. Skywarp was still seated on a large rock, scanning a 'cactus'(it wasn't like there was much else to do). As for Thundercracker, he was scanning this 'world wide web', researching the human's weaponry, news reports, and factories. They obviously weren't terribly advanced, but atleast he knew where he could get energy should it be needed in the close future. Finally, something came to his attention.

"...Barricade," Thundercracker looked over at the police car mech, who was pulled out of his fustration of trying to contact Scorpinok, "two objects landed on Earth 34 hours prior to me and Skywarp. Autobots?"

Barricade eyed him before glancing away to think about it. Skywarp looked up, hoping for some sort of distraction.

"... Probably. That means the odds are six to four." Since Starscream was not really available to help them out, he wouldn't be counted. Then again, they couldn't really even _get_ to Scorpinok; so it was six to three. The sooner the fleet arrived, the better. Skywarp picked up a rock and eyed it with distaste before throwing it. He watched as a puff of dust and dirt came up from where the rock landed.

"Ugh. This planet is one giant mud-ball. It'll be impossible to keep clean."

"Attention Decepticon forces, this is Ironhide of the Autobots." The radio link crackled to life rather suddenly accross the Decepticon's communication links. All three jerked their heads up in some surprise, turning back to back so as to watch the surrounding landscape. Being snuck up on and ambushed was a bad thing afterall.

"What do you want, Autoslag?" Barricade rumbled in anger, silently damning Starscream for letting the Autobots know the Decepticon frequency.

"Shut up, you. Are Thundercracker and Skywarp there?" They'd all already had a talk with Barricade, and his opinion had been a difinitive 'no'.

"Thundercracker here." The jet responded, waiting to see what this was about.

"Skywarp." He sounded a bit edgy.

"I'm going to assume that Barricade has already informed you about the peace treaty we're proposing. It'll start with a cease-fire on both sides."

"Yeah, he already told us. He also told us you guys fraggin' kidnapped Starscream and are making him work with you." Skywarp's response was quick and snippy, "What kind of peacetreaty is that?"

"Hey! HE said he accepted the peacetreaty. So he's working with us." The Autobot growled. Ironhide's best quality wasn't diplomacy. Or patience. Or dealings with Decepticons that didn't involve his plasma cannons. Luckily, Commander Lennox was sitting in the diver's seat of the black truck, and patted the dashboard to signal for him to calm down.

"It was either that or he'd be down in the brig. He wouldn't listen to us otherwise." There was radio silence for a moment. Thundercracker was the first to speak.

"Who is this?"

"We don't _talk_ with humans, let alone discuss our personal buisness with them." Barricade interjected quickly and angrily. He could have sworn that he made that clear the _last time_ he'd had the pleasure of being spoken to like an equal by such a puny species.

"The humans are playing host to this fight, so they get a say in this." Ironhide barked. The Decepticon's engine rumbled, but he didn't go any further into the issue; the topic of humans was nowhere near worthy of his attention.

"We wanna talk with Starscream. Where is he?" Skywarp finally blurted.

"He's not available. I promise you won't be harmed if you give yourself up." Yes, Ironhide was still having issues with the meaning of a 'peace treaty'.

"That is called 'total surrender' you fragging idiot." Barricade sneered, "And the answer is 'no'."

"Why you-!" Ironhide started on the wrong path to a peace treaty. Commander Lennox cut him off before he gave into Barricade's provokes.

"Instead of trying to get everything we want, Ironhide, perhaps we should ask for a compromise." The Commander could feel the Transformer's engine rumble under him in aggravation, but he quieted.

"There is _nothing_ you can offer short of your complete and total _distruction_ that we would even think of accepting." Barricade's decision breezed in like a wrathful wind. Ironhide was completely okay with ending this attempt for peace here and now after that statement.

"I want to hear that from Skywarp and Thundercracker as well before we just decide to kill each other." Commander Lennox interjected, surprising all of them since they seemed to have accepted the situation as finished. There was an expectant silence lingering accross the communications link.

"... I am willing to comply with a cease fire, IF I speak with Starscream." Thundercracker stated slowly, making the human relax with a bit of a sigh. So there was SOME hope.

"Yeah, and even then it's a complete and total 'MAYBE'." Skywarp agreed with his wingmate, touch of a bratty sneer curling around his statement. Barricade seemed less than pleased.

"WHAT?! You cannot be serious!"

"Oh pipe down ya punk. You heard them." Ironhide said rather smugly, "I'll talk with Optimus about your request and get back to you later."

"Recieved."

"Yeah, you better!"

The communications link was closed. Which left two Seekers with a very disgruntled science officer. Barricade rounded on the two and stepped away from them in disgust. Here he was, trying to deffend Decepticon pride, and these two went and agreed with the enemy. It was like he was surrounded by idiots, enemies, traitors, and someone who wouldn't pick up their phone no matter how many times you tried to call them.

"You have no right to call yourselves Decepticons! If this were any other situation, I would have you two _dismantled_ immediatly!" Reguardless of the fact he wasn't their commanding officer. Thundercracker didn't say anything, but turned and stepped away from him to take a seat on a large boulder. Skywarp just waved a hand at the angry Decepticon.

"Oh relax. I said 'maybe', remember? Besides, I got their coordinates."

--------------------------------

Human soldiers marched by a large black truck, being barked at by their commanding officer to pick up the pace and organize themselves. Backpacks of freezing agent were organized, and military grade everything was outside at this moment. Tanks, helicopters equipped with the reinforced cables, and the airforce waiting as backup on a base close by. Generals and Leutenants were radioing to their superiors to make sure everything was put and organized just so in order to be completely ready. The only human that seemed not to be so hurried was the one sitting inside the truck.

"That went better than I expected." The Autobot muttered, engine rumbling again in some annoyance. Part of him had wanted the peace treaty to fail so he could blow those Decepticons to slag. Ironhide really didn't think he could handle having to be around them if he couldn't shoot them. Commander Lennox was seated in the driver's seat with his arms partially crossed, one finger tapping his chin gently as he thought the situation over.

"Well, what do you think?" They had managed to get something of an understanding between them and two of the Decepticons that didn't involve violence. In theory.

"Mnnh... I still wouldn't trust their word. We'll stay here on tactical alert. I need to contact Optimus." The driver door popped open to allow the Commander out in order to talk to whoever he needed. Ironhide closed the door and transformed, opening a communications link back to the Autobot base.

... (imagine random telephone ringing noises here)

No answer. Optimus was usually in the main communications and control room though. While incoming and outgoing communications were blocked and redirected to the main computer room for safety reasons, it really was annoying. All he could guess was that everything was totally fine, or everything wasn't from the evidence. He'd have to try again in a few minutes or something.

----------------------------- More than a few minutes later

"This is Optimus Prime, radioing Ironhide." Ironhide jerked his head up slightly, having been researching the dynamics of 'poker'.

"About time Optimus. I've been calling every five minutes." The bot stood up, the clamor around him having died down and everyone simply staying on high alert.

"So I noticed. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get back to you sooner; I was having a lengthy discussion with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe." Well that explained a lot, and it probably did absolutely nothing to resolve whatever issue they were discussing. What those two needed was a firm kick in the tailpipe in order to drive it home.

"I was able to get into contact with Thundercracker and Skywarp. We got them to agree to a compromise. "

"What did they ask for?" There was some good news.

"Thundercracker says he'll agree to the cease-fire if he gets to talk to Starscream, and Skywarp agreed with him. Barricade still wants to kill us." You win some, you lose some.

"...Do you think you'll need assistance?" It would be foolish to believe them completely.

"Maybe. But I don't want you and Ratchet left alone with Starscream. Not with three other Decepticons about. I'll radio you if I need assistance. Make sure Bumblebee is alright." It was like standing in the darkness and waiting to see if some monster would attack you or present itself peacefully. All you could do was prepare yourself for the worst.

"I'll talk with them. Optimus out."

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One huge thing I want to know from people more experienced. It may be involved since the setting will mainly be on Earth.

WHUT IS THE EFFECT OF AN ELECTRO MAGNETIC PULSE ON A CYBERTRONIAN?! Seriously. Would it do anything? (for those of you who don't know what an EMP does; it knocks out anything electrical in the area.)

Reason for Starscream's leaving the Decepticon army: Something related to Unicron. Or the All-Spark? (Debateable, needs input)

Dangers for Starscream: Everyone. Mostly Decepticon (Set)

Transformers in Human form: Successful scientific experiment by Starscream. Allows him to move freely among humans and work on a smaller scale.(Adjustable)

Starscream's leaving time: Middle to the end of the Transformer war. (Adjustable)

Autobot(s) discovering Starscream??? (HALP!)

Decepticon(s) discovering/hearing word of Starscream(thus coming to destroy/capture him): Soundwave? (HALP)

Reasons for Autobot(s) stopping by on Earth: Exploring??? (HALP!)

Crossover: Justice League?? Enterprise?? (??? I dunno)

What Starscream is doing on Earth: Developing weapons and technology for the (US? Russian?) military in exchange for his new home. (Adjustable)

Aside from those detailed points; opinions on what universe this should be set in? A unique combination of G1 and Armada, or tailored AU all together. I'm going to need **major** help with the overall details.

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Bee: So Turq, how ya feelin'?

Turq: SHADDUP AND GO AWAY HUMAN!

Bee: Yeah she's fine...


	17. Acid Rain

Chapter 17

(This A/N is just about the new story)

I'd like to thank you all personally for your input on the subjects stated in the last chapter(See ze foot note for individual thanks). I also need to clear up something for you all, since you seemed to think it meant something else.

Human Starscream:

I highly doubt that Starscream would transfer his spark into a flesh-bag. Seriously. What I meant was an android or cyborg body he created. Think like 'The Terminator', where our (or atleast, my/California's) dear Governator plays a machine covered in something like half an inch of synthetic skin that simulates real human skin. Under that is a metal endoskeleton with all the advanced technical do-dads and whathaveyou.

-Yes, he will drink Energon to sustain himself.

-Yes, he will weigh a heck of a lot more than a human.

-Yes, he will appear to have super-human strength.

-Yes, he will become a master of disguise.

-No, no one else is going to be converted to a human.

Two more things:

1) What Autobots and Decepticons would you like to see in the new story?

2) I'm going to need Beta-ers and helpers in order to put this story together.

:O Scorpinock gets a scene in this chapter.

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Ground Zero. Armaggedon. The Last Stand. Your Destiny. Meeting Your Maker. The Final Showdown. Humans had many different phrases that meant your last days on Earth.

All of the lights had shut off in the entire base, leaving a system of dark red lights to flash in alarm like an evil strobe light. The computer terminals had gone into a basic lockdown, a calming female voice echoing through the inner halls from the intercom to alert anyone of the critical situation. As if they didn't already know. Paranoia and alarm was running high; every dark corner getting a second glance as if it could contain an enemy.

"Optimus!" Black smoke bled through the air, sludging out of damaged machinery and dissapating like blood in water. Twisted and charred metal littered the ground from gaping holes in the walls, exposing melted and sparking wires that threatened to start a fire. The sound of gunfire had ceased, but no one had relinquished their weapons. A pour of rain beat at the muddy ground outside and on the sheet of metal that served as the hangar's roof. Its sound echoed against the hard surfaces, accompanied by the threatening crash of thunder. Storms. Something that was non-existant on their home planet of Cybertron.

"Release Starscream to us immediatly!" Cold white light flashed and filled the room with a deafening clap, casting the Decepticons in a dark silouette with glowing red optics focused on the deffending twins. Both damaged and weary. Both still holding their rifles ready, feeling their stubborn resolve waver as it was tugged at by doubt and despair. Fear.

"This could be resolved peacefully! There's nothing left for you to fight for!" Oil and faintly glowing energon was leaked onto the floor.

"Optimus didn't want this! He wanted to end this peacefully!" Last trickles of hope keeping them from charging as two berzerkers into battle. Harsh mocking laughs echoed against the hard surfaces. Maybe it wasn't hope that held them back, but respect for their leader's wishes.

"_Optimus_ doesn't have a say in this." Gears clicked in smug laughter and fustration, one side having all the time in the world, and the other desperately searching for thinning options. It was the worst possible scenario. Bumblebee and Ironhide were on their way, but wouldn't be able to get here in time. Everything had happened too fast. The Decepticon fleet had arrived and the Autobots had nothing.

The hangar had a crumpled Cybertronian, optics dark and spark fizzled out. His blood puddled and leaked accross the floor.

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8 Hours Until Ground Zero

---------------------------------

"It looks like a storm is rolling in. Looks pretty big." Ratchet had become intirested in everything generally human. He found them intreguing. To be so brash and feel like they were the most important thing in the universe. For such an inferior species to believe that... it made him laugh just to think about their bold enthusiasm. It was almost cute. Like how a human may think of a vicious and driven dog that had to jump to reach their knee. How could so much determination fit into such a small package? Organic beings truely were strange.

"This planet's 'weather' and 'climate' are rediculous. It's nothing but a hinderance." Starscream was rereading his report to make sure he got everything. It was pretty much going to be his to-do list after all.

"It plays an intricate roll on an organic life-form bearing planet," Ratchet began to explain, "a diversity of climate creates different species. Biological organisms must adapt to different weather, temperature, terrain, and surroundings in order to surrvive. Unlike us, humans were always divided. They've had to overcome the greatest thing they fear; difference." The human species needed to overcome such strange barriers in order to live peacefully with one another. Prejudice and intollerance seemed to be their greatest foes.

All of that sounded absolutely rediculous to the Decepticon, and he let out a scoff to illustrate this. As far as Transformers went, their differences were few compared to the many catagories humans seemed to have created, "Humans are a disturbing and tainted race. They've done things to their own species that we wouldn't even do to them." Sure he hadn't done much poking around on the internet, but the glossed over version he'd gotten from their interweb showed that human history was built on corpses and blood. Those that were driven enough to make a positive difference were few. Starscream looked down on how low they could crawl, especially because nothing productive could come of it all.

"They have more weaknesses than we do. Some of them prey on those weaknesses," Ratchet's voice was delicate, as if picking his words carefully. He'd seen how good humans could be. Their past shouldn't be enough to condemn them when they were making progress, "but they are trying. That's something atleast." As guests on this planet, they shouldn't feel ill will toward their hosts anyway. Starscream just snorted slightly in sarcasm as he dismissed the other's opinion.

---------------------------------

7 Hours Until Ground Zero

---------------------------------

"You haven't asked anything of him to aid you in the war?" Thundercracker sounded... impressed. That certainly didn't make any tactical sense.

"No, I haven't. The only rough patch we encountered was capturing him." The scuffles he'd had with Ironhide were nothing life-threatening.

At the moment, a communications link was open between the base and two Decepticon Seekers; Thundercracker and Skywarp. It was likely that Barricade was listening to their conversation as well.

"So he seriously hasn't been doing anything... Starscream-y?" Skywarp asked, surprised and just a little dissapointed. Optimus shifted his weight to one leg.

"It's true. Starscream has been on his best behavior." Something that was probably unheard of. There was thoughtful silence for a few moments before Skywarp spoke up again.

"You sure you have _our_ Starscream?" The Autobot leader could almost see the Seeker's fellow Decepticons roll their optics at the stupid question. There were no other Starscreams; every Transformer had their own name that nobody else shared. Although the question did merit a slightly humored chuckle.

"Yes, I am sure. Now about our cease-fire..." Getting on track again.

"We haven't spoken with Starscream yet." Thundercracker supplied as a reminder.

"There won't be any ceaseing of fire until we do!" Skywarp piped up.

Optimus seemed to think about this for a moment, "...He doesn't know that you're here yet. I'll have him here in a moment."

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6 Hours Until Ground Zero

------------------------------

"Whoa... Humans have a lot of games." Sunstreaker was sitting in the large hangar, post-poning his 'duties' of babysitting a touchy Decepticon that he wanted more than anything to kill. Sideswipe was of the same opinion as far as Starscream went, and was searching the internet for anything he could do on this planet. Rolling down a ramp at full speed to try and jump over as many cars as possible sounded like fun.

"You don't suppose Optimus would let us out to go and jump over helicopters, do you?" Humans apparently thought it was really amazing. Sunny just laughed.

"Yeah right. We'd get in sooo much trouble." It wasn't time to slack off anyway. Though later on...

"But would it be worth it?" Sides grinned, "Humans think it's crazy and dangerous." Which would make the rewards all the more sweeter. Sunstreaker seemed to think about this for a bit of a loooong moment, researching the subject. He could be like some mysterious masked bot that no one knew but all thought was amazing.

"Mehh... I'll put it on my to-do list..." Soon as he could. Or atleast until boredom got the better of his good judgement.

------------------------------

5 Hours Until Ground Zero

-----------------------------

"So you want me to look around? That's it?" Skywarp tilted his head slightly to the side in question. That was boring...

Barricade gave him a stony gaze that clearly said 'no questions'. This would be vital to any sort of alternative action besides the cease-fire, "You are the most capable." Wait, rephrase, "The least likely to be brought down with your ability to teleport."

"It will be easy. Just don't be detected." Thundercracker was leaning against a large rocky wall with his arms crossed. They had already searched the internet for the most recent news reports on military activity, and the known military bases. Some simple reconnisance would be no problem.

"Yeah, I know. What if I get spotted?" There was dust on his armor... lots of it... dust... everywhere.

"Do not get spotted." Barricade growled sternly, gears clicking irritably as he looked skyward. A strong wind had been blowing for a while, and it was stirring up dust.

"And stay in contact. We need to know the human military status." His fellow Seeker reminded him, raising his pointer finger at him to emphasis. Skywarp just waved a hand at him like he was tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. Which he was.

"I got it already." The Autobots would naturally be cautious of this extension of peace, so if they found Skywarp sneaking around it wouldn't do them any good.

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4 Hours Until Ground Zero

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"Sam, it's getting pretty late... I should be heading home." The sun was setting and casting a beautiful light on the area. Light clouds in the area caught the ending rays and shone in pinks and oranges. Darker clouds were far-off in coming.

"Awwh... Sure you can't stay any longer?" Both Sam and Mikaela were seated on a swinging bench on his parent's porch, enjoying the sunset and eachother's warmth. Sam's slightly higher vantage point allowed him to sneak glances down his girlfriend's shirt, too.

"Well... I dunno... would your parents allow a sleepover?" This request had some serious consideration. After a few moments, Mikaela looked up and nudged him with a bit of a silence breaking smile.

"Err... Sure! Of course they would! Totally!" Sam blurted, stroking her long hair. She laughed a little and sat up more.

"I was kidding. We have school tomorrow anyway. But you and Bumblebee can drive me home." Mikaela watched as Sam wilted a little, but perked at being able to spend just a little more time with her. She stood and stretched a little, and Sam's eyes roved over her body like a treasure hunter looks at gold and diamonds. His eyes traveled up to her face, and found that she was looking at him. Busted. Of course. He coughed and looked away quickly before glancing back to see if she was still looking. She winked.

"C'mon. Before it gets too dark."

Sam hopped up off the bench and dusted his pants off before trying his hand at curling his arm around Mikaela's waist. Though he put on a confident air, a wary eye wandered to her to make sure he wasn't crossing any sort of line. With no pain or critical look resulting, Sam walked his girlfriend to the yellow and black racer striped Transformer.

-----------------------------------

3 Hours Until Ground Zero

-----------------------------------

"Scorpinock!" Blood... it was caking all of his metal and getting into his gears. Along with dirt and mud. This whole planet sucked.

"Recieved, Barricade." The smaller Cybertronian was standing infront of a large newly made elephant carcass, sharp legs clicking against the dusty ground. These large creatures interferred with his scanners left and right. And ontop of it, sometimes they charged him.

Behold, the bane of every African Reservation; burrowing menace Scorpinock.

"I have been trying to reach you for the what feels like the last millenium!" Barricade's voice was grating and highly aggitated. There should be some kind of watering hole nearby where he could wash this gunk off of him.

"Acknowledged. I have been avoiding being above ground. I have no camoflage." And some of the Primus damned organics attacked him on occasion too. Speaking of which, it looked like a herd of herbivorious organics were at the targeted watering hole.

"Your problems are secondary. The armed forces in your area are possibly the most primitive on the planet. I want you to remain above ground for the next few days for contact." Some bullet fire cleared the watering hole, allowing Scorpinock to enter the water.

"What am I missing? Fill me in on the last few days." Something snapped at one his legs, but he trampled on into the murky water. More blood filled the water from the crocodile he'd trampled and poked holes into.

"You already know that Starscream is in the custody of Autobots. They have proposed a peace treaty, or atleast a cease-fire." The water's current washed through his joints and gears, pulling at the dried blood and dirt. Dust was washed away fairly easily.

"And?" Joints were moved in order to try and grind away the gunk as he moved through the water.

"Thundercracker and Skywarp have arrived. We are working on a way to retrieve Starscream. Contact the fleet and keep tabs with them. We are going to need help." Something was caught on one of his legs, cracking and crunching as he tried to remove it.

"Recieved. I will remain in contact." Preferably on some sort of hard ground that wasn't dusty.

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2 Hours Until Ground Zero

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"Everything and just about everyone has been mobilized and ready for the past... five hours. Some of the soldiers are starting to get restless." Commander Lennox was fiddling with the fancy, high ranking hat he had in his hands. Though it belonged on his head. He never really like hats anyway.

"Bah. I remained mobilized for five of your Earth weeks back on Cybertron while dealing with a Decepticon siege that went on and off the whole time." Ironhide scoffed proudly, large arms crossed as he turned blue optics skyward. He'd taken a seat on some sort of solid structure, and would absently look over the human troops as if they were his own. Primus he was built for war.

"You had something to deal with by being attacked. And uh... have more patience." Human military disciplin tended not to come close to a Transformer's. Let alone Ironhide. They had years and _years_ to solidify and devote themselves to this situation called war. Most of these soldiers were joining the army to get through college, and just to have a job.

"Bah. Younglings, all of you." He waved a hand for emphasis as he looked down at the human. Commander Lennox just put his hat back on and scanned the area.

"... I'm going to ask the men to relax but remain at the ready. They'll take shifts in monitoring equipment." Ironhide watched him as he turned and walked in a chosen direction. Bunch of amateures...

--------------------------------

1 Hour Until Ground Zero

--------------------------------

Silence. Space was like that. One giant black vaccume of a void decorated with white dots that shined and twinkled distantly. It was cold, freezing and lonely. When you got too close to a star it became unbearably hot. Space was a giant, harsh wasteland with oasises called planets dotting it. Those larger objects like asteroids floated and drifted like great lurking predators that hid against the blackness. A truely frightening place to be stranded without a purpose.

"Approaching Earth's Atmosphere." A large, dark object was looming slowly toward Earth. It was under a cloaking field, still in the process of slowing down from higher speeds.

"This is Decepticon Fleet Ship Deoxys. Contacting Barricade." The location they were lining up to approach had thick cloud cover, and was on the darker side of the planet.

"Recieved. Deploy troops to these coordinates." Plans were already set in action. The power in the plan needed to arrive, "Destroy everything." Chosen Decepticon soldiers had already been slotted for each mission. They were so organized for this strike it was rediculous.

"Troops deployed." Three groups of four. Two groups of two.

"Recieved. Out." There was a schedual to keep. If executed exactly, it would secure victory for the Decepticons. Timing and procedure was everything for such a surgical plan. They couldn't have asked for better weather. The cover was wonderful.

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Susinko- Good grief, we were up until midnight and only got two things set. But I greatly enjoyed our analyzation of Starscream's mentality (though we did get a bit off track). It will definetly help in the future story. We still need to figure out a good enough reason for the Autobots not to immediatly jail Starscream, and for the Decepticons not to immediatly kill him. Sure it could be something small and easy like Megatron wanting to personally beat the oil out of him, but I think it'd be more exciting if it were something big. Of course, it can't be too rediculous and over-bearing (Ex: The Chosen One), but something believable that doesn't totally circle around Starscream. I look foreward to our next chat, and have no idea when that will be. Hope your daughter's birthday kicked-ass!

Casus Fere- Thanks for your information on how close Starscream is to just up and leaving the Decepticons, since I pretty much did not know any of it. Plus, how Megatron tends to make Starscream his scapegoat for... everything that goes wrong.

Seiks- Now then, about your astronomer!Starscream (YES THAT'S RIGHT YOU CAN'T LEAVE IT ALONE NOW), I think the idea is actually pretty good. He wouldn't trust humans with his Cybertronian body, and his experience amongst the stars already means he'll ace anything and everything. Having an observitory means he'll be able to monitor any possible Transformers arriving on Earth. Got anything else for me?

Zatnik- o.o We didn't get time to talk about much, did we? Ahh... How are you with fighting/action scenes? Because Starscream is going to have to pull off some crazy stuff in order to avoid physical capture.

Schyra- Well, having all of Unicron's army after Starscream WOULD merit his immediate flee-and-hide. There's a bit of a plot-hole as far as 'time' goes though. If the Transformers are fighting Unicron and Starscream makes The All-Spark to try and deffeat Unicron (thus resulting in a failure and redirection of a good deal of troops in Starscream's direction), would he have enough time to run to Earth, settle into hiding, and avoid all Transformers that would be hot on his tail?(if he managed to make anything atleast HALF successful against that Planet Eater, that would make his knowledge and skillz invaluable) I suppose if he slips out of all of their radars it would give him enough time to hide while they're looking everywhere for him(the universe is a big place afterall). But why would he want to run if he could help the Decepticons/Autobots deffeat Unicron? Any ideas to remedy this?

:O Ominous, aye?


	18. Puddles

Chapter 18

What do YOU do during Algebra II?

... Write Transformers snippets... -shifty eyes-

It's usually my Transformers tiem... XDD

That's right, I'm still alive. I blame the long wait on school.

Don't expect the new story to pop up soon (if at all) after Wishing Star wraps up.

. Get the Transformers DVD two disc set for the special features. One disc has only the movie (DISSAPOINTING).

And um... ignore the plothole in this chapter... GWAH.

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"Move the operations inside! We'd be stupid to let our soldiers sit out in the rain when they didn't need to." Humans in uniform clothing marched in organized formation to the large hangar in order to dry off and not catch a cold. They could remain mobilized in the hangar with lookout from the tower outside. Ironhide on the other hand remained outside in the open, standing with hands on his hips and watching the sky. Rain was pouring down on them, and it didn't look like it would stop any time soon. Not to mention the daylight was fading quickly. The rain could atleast help to clean out the dust in his gears.

"Ironhide to Bumblebee. How ya holding up?" These conditions were not ideal for deffenders. And they were on their own out in the field. Well... Ironhide had human military support.

"We drove Mikaela home, and Sam is inside his house. No suspicious activity." Bumblebee's slightly gargled voice responded. Ironhide remained quiet for a few moments as he checked up on the weather. It was a pretty big storm, and would probably last all night.

"Alright... I don't know how long the humans can hold up. I'm going into recharge so I can keep watch later tonight." The weapons-savvy 'bot let his optics scan the dark sky again before turning to walk into the hangar with the humans.

"Roger." Huh. Cute. He was adopting human terminology.

"Out." Ironhide closed the communications link.

There was a sudden, loud booming noise from behind him and Ironhide reacted quickly; engaging both of his plasma canons as he whirled around, "..." Nothing. Optical scans picked up a tear of lighting ripping through the sky far away, soon followed by a loud clap of thunder. Just Earth weather. He waited a few moments before disengaging his weapons and turning to walk back into the hangar. Will Lennox was at the large opening, waiting for him. His face was schooled with a serious expression.

"Jumpy?" He asked after a moment, voice raised to clear the sound of the rain.

Ironhide just 'hmphed' as he stepped over the human and into the large shelter, which sounded like he'd stepped into a roaring subwoofer from the rain pelting at the metal roofing, "You can't never be too careful." Ironhide found he had to raise his voice a little as well. Commander Lennox turned and took up a brisk pace to walk alongside the Autobot, who flexed his muscle cables and rattled his gears a little to try and dislodge some water.

"That's true. How is everyone else?"

"They're doin' fine for now. 'Bee is keeping a sharp look out over Sam, and the Twins are on watch with Optimus and Ratchet. I'm going into recharge, so wake me up to watch for the later half of the night." Ironhide stretched a little in emphasis, metal joints in his back and fingers popping ominously.

"Roger."

---------------------

"This is Decepticon Thundercracker radioing Autobot Earth base. Copy?" Moisture gathered and crystalized on a military marked jet's wings, forming ice to coat gears and prevent optimum maneuverability. Energon lines finally felt the touch of cold, and the Seeker lowered his altitude to avoid the extreme temperatures.

"Copy. Autobot Optimus Prime recieving. What's your position Thundercracker?" The lower altitude didn't stop the moisture. But the thing that was worriesome was the static build-up in the dark clouds.

"Twelve minutes due north-east of your position. Coming in to negotiate as requested."

"Recieved. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker will escort you inside."

"Negative; breaks Decepticon protocol. I wish to talk outside."

"... Very well. I will speak with you outside. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe will be with me."

"Affirmative. Barricade and Skywarp will join me later."

"Noted. Over."

"Over."

The communications link closed.

----------------------

"You shouldn't be so distracted. You'll get a chance to talk with your wingmates after Optimus is finished." Starscream was under Ratchet's watch in the medical bay. Again.

The panel with all of his notes was getting harder to concentrate on since his processor was running all sorts of simulations of possible outcomes.

Ratchet was cleaning some of his medical tools as he stood infront of the large cabinet that contained more sharp objects than anything Starscream had ever seen. He avoided opening it since he was absolutely positive it was booby trapped to fling every sharp object it had at any intruder that wasn't Ratchet. Which was what had happened when Sideswipe had snuck in to rearrange all of Ratchet's tools in a 'welcoming' prank. Sideswipe then had to be treated by a rather pleasantly grim doctor.

Thus Starscream came to one of the first rules to live by while stuck in an Autobot base: NEVER push the medic.

"I'm not distracted! ... I'm trying to think if anything else in this Primus forsaken place that needs upgrades, if not downright _repairs._" He grumbled, looking down at the panel and scrolling by all of his notes.

"... Well, you're probably going to get back to more familiar surroundings soon enough." Ratchet examined his lazer scalple carefully before replacing it and looking at some of the other instruments. He could hear Starscream 'humph'.

"I look forward to it. The ammount of... _concern_ in this base is _stifling_."

Ratchet paused his cleaning to look back at him.

"... I'll never understand how you can all actually work together."

Starscream looked up sharply from the report panel.

"You mean us Decepticons? We work together in a sophisticated, strict military hierarchy." He snipped haughtily. To which Ratchet responded:

"...Nevermind. Forget I said anything." He didn't need to fight with Starscream.

The medic turned around and put away the already pristine heat clamp. He scanned the shelves for anything that gave even a slight hint of needing to be cleaned, which was absolutely not needed since every square inch of Ratchet's work area was spotless. The mother of this new OCD for cleanliness was the human discovery of biological germs, which induced sickness, death, and all around bad things. With the exception of yogurt. And cheese. There was practically a religion surrounding cheese.

"... Even if this peace treaty is succesful, Autobots and Decepticons will never be able to coexist socially. We are too different."

There was an odd silence in which Starscream felt he was undeniably correct as he tried to start on the electronic pad again, and Ratchet frowned as he tried to think of some way to counter it, or atleast find fault in the (slightly random) statement. It was a subject that was constantly at the back of all their processors as of late anyway.

--------------

"Ironhide! IRONHIDE!" Something small and hard connected with his shoulder, bouncing off weakly as his systems came to life. All at once he sensed bustling activity around him; human troops running to their respective positions. Panic swirled through the tense air, caused by all of the slightly hurried hustle and bustle. It was the excitement before a battle.

Ironhide looked down as he sat up quickly and alertly, "Commander Lennox?" His question didn't need to be voiced; the alert and professional tone that held underlying excitement said it all. He watched as the human gave one quick nodd.

"Four bogies on radar, ETA one minute." Nothing more needed to be said. No explanation about how talking to them had failed, or about how no pilot in their right mind would fly in this weather, or that no one was schedualed to arrive here, let alone a group of four. The barrels of Ironhide's plasma cannons engaged and spun, standing and taking long strides to the opening of the military hangar.

"I _knew_ we couldn't trust those 'cons!" The weapons specialist grumbled loudly to no one in particular. He rushed to the open runway, keeping clear of the human jets taking off to the skies as he skidded to a halt, planting his feet and looking up at the stormy gray mass above him.

Ironhide opened up a communications link to the Autobot base and got no response.

Optimus was outside with the Twins talking with Thundercracker.

No one was in the main control room.

Ratchet couldn't hear the unanswered message from his seat as he delved into human music.

Starscream did not look up from his report panel.

Ironhide tried again, and got no answer.

He tried again.

No answer.

He could see far off in the distance the formation of Decepticon jets.

"Frag it all!" He cursed, moving his position to the middle of the runway in a clear spot, opening a communications link to the only other Autobot he could reach.

"Bumblebee! Keep your optics sharp and canons ready; there's some real foul play going on." Ironhide couldn't get a clear shot of the Decepticons at this range, let alone with the human jets weaved in with them. The formation had broken apart to combat the jets, scanning their forms to camoflage and cause further confusion.

"Ironhide, I'm going to break cover." A huge risk regularly not even worth considering.

"Be careful. It looks like Decepticon backup has arrived. I've got four seekers here." Seekers that were utterly murdering human jets with their bare hands.

"Optimus?" It couldn't be a worse time for him to be missing from the computer room; he couldn't be warned.

"Can't reach him. We're on our own." Ironhide couldn't help until he got one of the jets on the ground, or atleast more near it with no human jets in the way.

Two jets broke away from the aireal dog-fight to turn their attention to the rest of the government base, letting loose missiles to destroy other jets and buildings. The radio tower was taken out in a blazing fireball. There were no screams of horror, only scrambling organized movements, some humans going to almost useless steel cable harpoons. Ironhide charged one of his cannons and took aim, firing and missing as the seeker blazed by overhead. Locked and loaded, a harpoon was fired at too far a distance, the spinning cable expending itself as it reached its transformed target. The Decepticon grabbed the harpoon in the air without a problem, turning it in his hand and throwing it like a spear back to the ground, followed by a rain of bullets for good measure.

"Slagging coneheads..." The Autobot grumbled, plasma cannons whirring to life as he recognized Thrust and got a bead on him from behind.

-------------------

"Bumblebee! What-?! What are you doing?!?!" Sam had thrown himself out of bed and to the window when he heard his guardian transforming, looking at him in shock as he stood to his full height. What would his parents think? Good grief!

"Sam, get to a safe place." Bumblebee turned his head sharply to the human hanging out of his window, arm morphing into his energy canon and his helmet mask dropping down over his face. The Autobot's optics turned up toward the sky and he flexed his door-wings, alert for any incoming Decepticons.

"Wh-? Bumblebee, what are you talking about?!" Even if he was arguing, Sam grabbed up shoes that had been tossed near the window, still in his boxers and sleep shirt. He rubbed at the sleepy crusts in the corners of his eyes hurridly, looking at the door to his room as he waited for some kind of sound that signaled his parents had gotten up.

A sudden lightening flash revealed a formation of four flying in the sky, optics zooming in quickly for details. Bumblebee's cannon whirred and glowed blue as he moved out of the driveway, taking no care to where he was stepping and kicking down half a brick wall as he moved to the middle of the street. What he needed was a clear area with no humans, somewhere he could fight and keep the humans safe; out of the way.

The thunder boom followed and seemed to sweep around him, wind battering trees in the center divider of the street. A missile had be launched.

Bumblebee dodged and rolled back, trying to keep as far away from the houses as possible. The missile hit and blew up in the street, taking a huge bite out of the asphalt and tossing dirt away from the center divider. Debris flew and crashed through windows of houses closest to the blast, shattering them, beating up plantlife and chipping at the stucco walls.

"Autobot!" He could hear the distant cry of hatred through the pounding rain as the Decepticons quickly approached and transformed, firing more missiles at Bumblebee. Dodging them was tricky, since he didn't want to dodge one and have it hit a human house behind him. Bumblebee did his best to shoot some of the missiles down, watching as the seeker landed and cracked the pavement under his feet. The same happened with the other three jets.

This was no place for a brawl. Thinking quickly, Bumblebee placed his hand infront of his face as the Decepticons raised their weapons to lock onto him, thumb touching his nose as he wiggled his fingers and immitaded a sound like a raspberry. All four Decepticons just stared at him as the Autobot taunted them.

"Catch me if you can, Deceptislags!" Bumblebee turned and smacked his aft at them before running off down the road, leaving the baffled and antagonized mechs in his metaphoical dust. Cries of rage quickly followed as they ran after him, firing weapons at the Autobot and missing as the smaller dodged them, turning back and firing his canon in return fire. There was no way he could transform to outrun them, because they would transform then and catch up to him without even trying. The only thing he could do was remain in robot form and lead them out of the neighborhood, to some place uninhabited. Then, even if he lost, no humans would be caught in the crossfire.

--------------

"This is Cyclonus, radioing Scorpinok, you copy?"

The scorpion-like mech looked up to the sky, rotating his pincers and clicking them impatiently. Optic enhancement locked on a helicopter flying in from far away.

"Copy." His tail twitched and lashed a little behind him, knocking aside the burning remenants of a safari jeep. It had taken quite a while for him to fix his tail after the end had been blown off by those flesh-bagged carbon monkeys. Now he relished using it again. Behind him was the evidence of that usage, with an entire safari reservation building in flames and pieces. Flaming pieces.

"I'm taking you back to the Deoxys. If we don't get the others back, _someone _has to debrief us."

"Affirmative. I'm more than ready to get off this dirtball of a planet. But it is rich in resources for making energon." He added in an afterthought. Scorpinok's sharp legs clicked and shuffled accross the dusty ground as he waited for Cyclonus to land.

"We'll look at that after we get rid of the Autotrash."

---------------

"Optimus, lookout!" His leader was already three steps ahead of him, jumping and dodgerolling to the side as a missile landed where he had once stood. Optimus reached back for his long rifle as his optics looked up at the sky. A formation of five seekers was illuminated by a flash of lightening, followed quickly by a crack of thunder. Skywarp was at the head of the formation.

"The frag is this?!" Sideswipe had his own rifle out and pointed at Thundercracker, who just turned his head to look at him expressionlessly before jumping back and pointing guns at the three of them.

"This meeting thing was a load of slag! I knew it!" Sunstreaker growled, raising his gun and shooting at Thundercracker. The seeker dodgerolled to the side to avoid the hit, backing up more as he opened fire. He was echoed by the formation of five jets behind him, all divebombing the three Autobots. They had to move.

"We can't fight them out here, move inside!" But gunfire suddenly splattered from behind them, turning to see Barricade standing between them and the open hangar. Sunny cursed loudly.

"The slaggers got us cut off!" They ducked more fire and Optimus charged forward, long sword unsheathing from his arm.

"No choice! Charge him!" The twins followed their leader's order, turning back to fire at the jets as they ran. Consistant heavy fire forced the formation to break up and veer apart. Optimus's long legs had carried him to the hangar first, where he clashed with Barricade head on.

"Optimus!"

"Go! Get inside and warn Ratchet!" The order sped them forward, but didn't stop them from coming in close to the fight in order to punch and shoot Barricade off balance, giving Optimus the upper hand to grab the mech by the arm and throw him to the ground as he twisted and broke the Decepticon's elbow joint, using his sword to slice the arm off just above the broken elbow. A glowing green substance spurted out of the severed limb, mixing reluctantly with the pounding rainwater as Barricade screamed.

Both twins entered the hangar, optics set on the door that would lead them inside. Nothing was in their way; something that would soon change. As they almost got to the center of the hangar, the thin roof was crashed through by two seekers, who immediatly met the twins in close combat. Without missing a beat, they engaged and bowled into their enemies head-on, taking them down and wrestling with them on the floor. Two more seekers crashed through the roof behind the fight, moving forward to join in before they were hit from behind by something very large and heavy. Barricade's war cry from behind them gave each a good guess as to who it was. Unfortunatly, any morale gained by the knowledge was shot down when Optimus stabbed his sword down into one of the seeker's wings, slicing accross the back and torso. With his other hand, he grabbed the second seeker by the shoulder and rolled ontop of him, then over again to throw him aside with the centrifugal force. He made a decent dent against the inner wall of the hangar.

Optimus sat up quickly and narrowed his optics at Barricade, gears twitching in irritation as he formulated the best approach to this situation. Skywarp and Thundercracker were flanking the science officer, stepping infront of and around him since he wasn't moving forward. Both seekers had their weapons aimed at the Autobot Prime. They fired.

"Sunstreaker, Sideswipe!" Optimus dodged to the side, Sunstreaker rolling over so he was under the Decepticon he was fighting with, Sideswipe sitting up and pushing at his enemy. Both seekers were struck in the back with friendly fire, screaming and allowing the Twins the chance to throw them off and continue their assault. They hadn't counted on fire from the side, the Decepticon that had been flung by Optimus having gotten back up and firing at the Autobots. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe returned fire, trying to get out of the bullet hail as they moved. Every one of their enemies had decided that raining down artillery was the best course of action, and the three Autobots weren't faring well under the constant fire power.

"Ya give up, Autotrash?!" Skywarp cackled, moving in as he fired. They were going to be turned into 'swiss cheese' at this rate. Bullets were chipping away at their armor and bodies, crippling them.

Optimus looked back at his two soldiers, "Go!"

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe broke away and ran toward the hangar door, knowing Ratchet still needed to be warned. But having four missiles launched at them by Thundercracker and Skywarp, the Autobots threw themselves flat onto the floor. Sensors picked up the rush of wind overhead as the missiles missed their targets and hit the door to the rest of the base, the multiple blasts managing to tear a gaping hole in the door. Missiles were launched at Optimus before the weapons fire ceased and the five Decepticons advanced. The seeker Optimus had sliced into wasn't moving.

---------

"What in Primus's name was that?" Ratchet looked up, standing as the distant sounds of an explosion reached his audio recievers, the white lighting in the base suddenly flicking off and being replaced by a dark, flashing red. Starscream was looking around at the ceiling in some form of curiosity and confusion. A calm, female human voice began to come from the intercom,

"Main door breach. All personel please move to red alert codes of action."

Ratchet was up in a micron of a second, walking to the door with worry weighing heavily on his mainframe. He glanced at the Decepticon patiently sitting on a medical table with a tablet of notes in hand, looking innocently at the medic. The female voice was speaking again with more instructions.

"All personell report to your superiors for instructions."

"Stay put." Ratchet spoke sternly and pointed at the only other mech in the room, who maintained his innocent and somewhat attentive stare. The medic's optics flashed in warning before he opened the door and left the medical bay.

As soon as his foot entered the hall, Ratchet broke into a run, able to hear the quiet beepings of the main computer, tell tale signs of someone trying to communicate with them. Guilt had settled itself quite snugly on Ratchets shoulder, digging in its claws deep into his spark. He'd let himself get too comfortable, and hadn't been alert. What had happened while he was not paying attention? Ratchet opened the door to the main control room and ran over to the computer, accepting the transmission. Ironhide's voice blasted forth.

"ABOUT FRAGGIN' TIME! All chaos is breaking lose out here Optimus, are you alright?" There was a loud background explosion, Ironhide grunting as he dodged it.

"Optimus isn't here." Ratchet felt his energon go cold, "He's outside talking with Thundercracker..."

"WHAT?! For how long!?!? Primus damn it all, I'm dealing with FOUR seekers right now!" Ironhide raged.

"Ironhide, I'm-" There was a tap on his shoulder, and Ratchet paused as he turned his head to see who was behind him. Optics sighted Starscream swinging a heavy bar of steel directly at his head before be blacked out.

There was an empty clattering sound as Starscream dropped the bent length of steel, stepping gingerly over the offlined Autobot to the computer panel. As soon as the door to the medical bay had closed, he'd gotten off the table and disassembled it with incredible quickness.

"Ratchet? Ratchet what was that?" There was another explosion in the background of the weapon specialist's communication link. Starscream stepped forward, unable to hold back the evil smirk curling around his features.

"The person you are calling is unavailable. Please leave your name along with your message and number after the beep."

"Starsc-?!" Beep. Starscream closed the communications link and silence reigned. It was hard to stifle the laugh clawing to get out, and it felt like his grin would split his face in two. Primus that had been sweeter than the finest energon.

Casting a glance down at Ratchet, Starscream paused, then turned his sights up and walked to the door that would lead him outside. It could have been the longest walk he'd ever had, and the sight of the blasted door heightened his attention. He could hear the Autobot twins in the hangar, along with the familiar cackle of Skywarp.

"_Optimus_ doesn't have a say in this." More laughter followed, cruel and mocking. It looked like his 'rescuers' had arrived. Starscream reached out and gripped the charred and twisted steel, pushing it open more and stepping through. The laughter had completely stopped as soon as the creak of metal reached their audio recievers.

Smoke was filtering through the air, and bullet holes and missile blots filled the hangar. It looked like a complete and utter mess. Both Autobot twins were on the ground, wounded and weakened. The great Optimus Prime was lying on the ground as well, just as battered as Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, with Skywarp and Thundercracker both standing around him with missile launchers aimed. Sideswipe was the first to talk, his voice clinging at the edge of desparity.

"Where's Ratchet?"

Starscream's mouth slowly curled into a smile. An unreadible smile, "You'll meet him again soon enough." The statement envoked hesitant chuckles from the surrounding Decepticons.

"I knew we couldn't trust you!" Sunstreaker raged, trying to push himself up to get Starscream.

"Oh stow it, Autobot." The Decepticon seeker waved a hand at Sunstreaker, telling him to shut up, then looking up at Barricade, who seemed to be lacking a limb, "... You look like slag."

Barricade just growled and waved his severed arm at him, "Shaddup, 'Screamer. What's with the paintjob?" making Starscream tilt his head to the side a little. There was a moment of silence while they all seemed to wait to see what would happen next. The mech they had come to 'save' had been saved. They had the complete and utter advantage to win the war right here and deliver the final blow. There was only one thing to do now.

"...All right, we're leaving." Starscream just turned and started walking toward the hangar entrance. Everyone was silent as they stared at him, mouths agape at the strange flippant behavior. Same old Starscream, with his moods changing from one end of the spectrum to the other in a micron of a second. But leaving behind an oportunity to eliminate the Autobot's Prime made _no_ sense.

"Wh-what?! What are you talking about? We've got _Optimus Prime_ here. _Optimus. Prime._ Did they mess with your processor while you were here or something?" Skywarp yelled at him, turning his back on the Autobot leader as he waved an arm at Starscream. His leader just paused to look back at him, then looked over at the other three seekers, who were covering the Twins. He waved a hand at them, motioning for them to lower their weapons. They did so, after a moment of unsure silence and glancing at one another. Barricade's crimson optics blazed.

"Starscream, what do you think you're doing?"

"Yeah! What gives?!" Skywarp set his hands on his hips, looking like he was about to throw a temper tantrum. Thundercracker remained still though, gun still aimed at Optimus. Starscream just turned to look back at the two Decepticons.

"Did you hear me? I said we're leaving. You need repairs anyway," He guestured to Barricade, "before you run out of energon." there was a puddle of it on the floor. Everyone was staring at him like he'd blown a gasket. Including the Autobots.

"... No. We are going to finish this. Thundercracker, shoot him." Barricade growled with finality, turning and looking at Thundercracker, waving a hand in a guesture that told him to fire. Starscream raised up a hand quickly.

"Belay that order, Thundercracker. I'm the ranking officer here, and you will _all_ listen to _me._" His optics glowed brightly and dangerously as he advanced on Barricade, machine gun in his arm emerging and spinning emptily. Hungrily.

Lacking an arm, Barricade took a step back, but only one, standing his ground after that. Skywarp had lingered back a little, waiting to see what would happen here. With one quick movement, Starscream snatched Barricade's arm from him, moving his face close to the other Decepticon's, "Listen _closely_ Barricade; I'm taking the position of Leader for the Decepticons; I'm most qualified. If you don't like my methods, then I'll just have to report that you died in battle." He waited for his meaning to sink in. It did. And Barricade's optics visible dimmed as he backed down. For now. Starscream stepped away from him, still holding his arm.

"All right, we're leaving. Call back the other Decepticons." He knew for a fact that there were other Decepticons on this planet. Ironhide had said so.

"But-" Barricade stepped forward, feeling anger build in him again. Starscream just turned around quickly and smacked him with his own arm.

"LEAVING. NOW." He screeched, pointing violently at the hangar entrance in emphasis. The three seekers behind him quickly moved to follow the order. Skywarp skirted around Starscream (out of easy striking distance) to leave, Thundercracker taking away the missile launcher pointed at Optimus briskly as he followed his friend. Barricade remained rooted on the spot, having turned his head quickly after being struck. _With his own arm._

The science officer's optics glowed a bright red, and his fingers flexed and clenched, body have started slightly to leap at Starscream, but then pausing and rethinking. He was at a serious disadvantage right now. Barricade's optics calmed to a smouldering broil, visual contact with Starscream not breaking. _I'm going to get rid of you._

At the same time, both Decepticons turned and started walking toward the hangar entrance. Starscream was still holding Barricade's arm. He was thinking about keeping it for a little while...

"... Starscream." The Decepticon paused and turned around, optics landing on Optimus, who was being helped up by the Twins (who needed help themselves), "... Thank you."

The Decepticon remained silent before scoffing, "Don't go thanking me yet, Prime, I'll need to talk to you later," He guestured Barricade's severed arm at him, "after you clean yourself up and talk with those fleshbags." Starscream turned around and left after that.

--------------- 

Two hours later, Ironhide and Bumblebee had arrived to find what was left of the hangar. Both were immensely relieved that no one had been killed, and were furious about what had happened. Everyone had to be treated by Ratchet, who was mercifully the least injured of everyone. He had to be brought around to start though, and he'd been very surprised that they were all still... alive in general. Much praise was on Bumblebee, for the young bot had managed to fend off FOUR seekers all on his own, until they were called back. He was pretty bad off, but bubbling with pride none the less.

Optimus had been very quiet reguarding the situation that had transpired, but soon found himself bombarded with calls from the United States Military, wanting to discuss and be informed of the current situation. Many arguments were had with the humans, and accusations were flung at the patient Prime, who slowly explained everything after the angry shouts had been finished, and answered all the questions fired at him best he could. All of the other Autobots had to be kept out of the room to stop them from yelling at the humans.

Both Sunstreaker and Sideswipe helped to clean up the mess in the hangar, though it wasn't without angry curses aimed toward Decepticons. They also helped to repair the medical table Starscream had dismantled in order to obtain a weapon, which had been used to wallop Ratchet in the face.

Perhaps the one taking this the worst was Ironhide, who was beating himself up for not shooting Starscream when he'd had the chance. He could have just said it was an accident and that would end it… For two days, hardly anyone sighted him around the base at all, and he seemed to have spent a good ammount of time in the shooting range, venting his anger.

It wouldn't help when a communications link opened in the main control room as Ironhide walked in. A visual image came up on screen, and it was Starscream.

"What do YOU want you _slagger_?" Ironhide had spat before Optimus even had a chance to open his mouth.

Starscream just turned his ruby optics to fixate on Ironhide for a moment, before smirking slightly, "So nice to see you too." He drawled, before looking back at Optimus, "Prime, I-"

"Hey! Don't ignore me! You've got no fragging right to be talking to us!" Ironhide interrupted loudly, plasma canons engaging and barrels spinning out of anger. Optimus turned around sharply, raising a hand.

"Ironhide!"

"It's fine, Optimus." Starscream interrupted the tension between the two Autobots. He turned his attention to Ironhide, "Before you start threatening to shoot my core to ashes, perhaps you should think about how you're all still alive." It had been Starscream that called all of the Decepticons back. Ironhide just glared at him and grumbled something dark and incoherent.

"What do you want?" The weapons specialist managed to grind out in some shadow of a calm voice. Starscream just tilted his head to the side and smiled.

"So glad you could put down you guns long enough to ask. I'd hate to have to come deliver my message in person." Like he'd ever do such a thing to put himself in danger.

Optimus seemed more attentive for the reason Starscream was calling, and he guestured patiently, "Continue." Starscream fixed his optics back on the Autobot leader.

"As leader of the Decepticons, I am accepting your peace treaty."

(Ba-da-da bump-baaa!) End (Bump-adda bump-aaa!)

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So how was it? Perk your intirest? Tickle your funnybone? Take you on a roller coaster? Kept you guessing? Make you want to strangle me? I personally think over a 100 reviews is quite an accomplishment, and it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

And thanks goes out to my sister who sat patiently and helped me figure out the details of the end in this story. Which (with me) generally consists of standing and talking at a rediculously fast and excited pace while waving my arms around violently to illustrate scenes.

So who was that Decepticon that died? Iunno…

You all have my complete and total permission to write spin-offs of this story if you want to complete it. Just make sure you send me the link to your stories so I can read it! XDD

-flees into the dark void, where it shall be long until she is heard from again-


End file.
